Swine Boy

Last Thursday, I came down with a cold. Sneezing, runny nose, headache… that type of thing. Friday night, Ty is the same way. Saturday we laid around for the most of the day… By Saturday afternoon Ty was feeling better and Bryan took the kids over to his mom’s and I stayed home and slept. Sunday I was feeling better, just not 100%. Ty was coughing, but that was it for her. Sunday night, Drew came in and said his head hurt. Monday morning, he had a snotty nose and was coughing too. During this whole time, no one had a fever and everything I read said that you cant have the Swine Flu if you don’t have a fever so Bryan and I made the decision to just treat symptoms and if anyone had a fever (him included) we were off to the doctor. Monday night, Bryan comes home and has a headache and is congested. So now we have a house of sickies, although by then Ty and I were doing so much better.

Tuesday morning Drew was still snotty and coughing, but no fever so I gave him some cold medicine and sent him to school. That afternoon I went to get him from daycare and he was laying on the couch moaning. They said they didn’t call me b/c they knew I would be there soon, but that he was not feeling well. Of course not, he was burning up! I had them get me a thermometer and he was 102.5. His eyes were red and tearing and he was pale. Before I even got out of the daycare building I was already on the phone with the Dr’s office. They didn’t have any appointments but walk-ins started in 30 mins so we ran home to change and went over there.

When we came in, there were two people ahead of us. A boy younger than Drew with a mask on and a teenage girl with a mask on. All were coughing with teary red eyes. The doctor saw us pretty quickly. She talked to us, checked him out, and said “Yup, he’s got the Swine Flu”. She said that they aren’t doing the test b/c there is a 70% false negative and it’s a cost that the clinic has to eat b/c insurance doesn’t pay for it. She mentioned that people she knows are showing up negative when she knows are positive, like a little boy who has 3 little brothers at home who are positive. She said that the main thing to do is treat the symptoms… cold medicine, Tylenol, Motrin, etc. She said that there is a shortage of kids Tamiflu but due to his seizure problems, she recommends we call around and find it b/c we cant let his fever get too high so he has a seizure. She said that once his fever is gone and he doesn’t need any fever reducing medicine for 24 hrs he can go back to school.

We stopped at Walgreen’s on the way home. People looked at him all funny b/c he had a mask on. The pharmacy said they didn’t have any kids Tamiflu but they checked in their system and they had it in SLC and Bryan was in SLC visiting Taylor so I paid for it there and had them call it in there and Bryan grabbed it on his way home.

I gave Drew his Tylenol around 630 and got him in his PJs and off to bed… I went back in at 930 like the pharmacist said to do and switched it for Motrin and gave him the Tamiflu but when I went to wake him up, I noticed he was drenched in sweat. His fever broke already! I got him changed and took his temperature, normal. Hmmm weird.

The next morning he was up before I was…. Just playing in his room. I took his temp, normal. I stayed home with him yesterday and he every time I took his temp it was normal. He didn’t need any Tylenol or Motrin yesterday, just kept giving him cold medicine for his snotty nose and cough and his Tamiflu. The doctor told me if he was 24 hrs without a fever he could go back to school… so when he was 30 hrs past fever this morning at 6, I got him ready for daycare/school and off he went. He is going to have a lingering cough for a while. Some people who had it said theirs stayed up to a month… so we will deal with that. I am just glad we got on top of this as quickly as we did and he made a speedy recovery!