the plague

Yesterday, at 2:30, Nora’s teacher called me and said she was in the nurse’s office with a fever of 102.3.

Awesome.

I was at Walmart with Rives and Elyn, getting our groceries and the kids in the van.  I threw everything in and raced to her school.  Pick up is at 2:40 and I was hoping to beat the car rider line…I DID!  (Because we all know how long it takes to sit in car rider line…forever.)

On my way into the school I was calling my doctor’s office, seeing if there was anyway I could nab an appointment before the office closed at 4:30, on a Friday afternoon.

Um, yeah, no way.  I’m surprised the receptionist didn’t laugh at me when I made the request.

I get into the nurses office and Nora looks pitiful…laying on the little bed and closing her eyes.  I scooped her up (as best I could with Rives in his carseat, Elyn, Nora’s backpack and my car keys) and we headed out to the car to go to a convenient care clinic.  (But not before a teacher on car duty stopped me to see if I was allowed to take Nora home with me…grrrrr.)

We made it to the clinic and I was told we would have to wait an hour…ok, not many options at this point.

FIVE MINUTES LATER or buzzer went off and we were escorted back to a room-yea!

Her fever had gone down a little bit (nurse gave her Tylenol) but she still felt awful.

Bless her heart!

Elyn, however, acted like she felt fine!

Hey mom, take my picture too:

The verdict…the flu.

She was a rockstar while they were swabbing her for strep and for the flu…didn’t even cry!  Elyn was very impressed.

(In the meantime, Rives is MAD AS A HORNET that I am not letting him get on the floor and crawl around…like wrestling a sack of puppies.)

Thankfully, one of Matthew’s coworkers dropped him off at the clinic so we didn’t have to go an pick him up too.

We headed to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription (her very very very expensive prescription) and stock up on Clorox items to rid my house of the plague.

We hustled Nora upstairs into the guest room and gave her strict instructions to not leave the room.

She was happy to lay in bed, with her chicken noodle soup, and watch tv!

We kept Elyn and Rives as far away as possible from Nora…trying to contain the germs.

HOWEVER.

At 3am, Elyn came into our room and said her tummy hurt.  She was also ON FIRE.

I kind of panicked and asked Matthew to get the thermometer for me.  When the thermometer got to 104 I quit taking her temperature…I couldn’t handle it if it went higher.  We ran a lukewarm bath for her and held her down in the tub.  She did not like it one bit.  I kept pouring water on her tummy, trying to get her to calm down.  Finally, I told her we could count to 100 and then she could get out.  I counted VERY SLOWLY to 100 and then wrapped her up in towels and cuddled her.

I took her temp again and it was down to 101.8…huge sigh of relief!  We gave her a dose of Motrin and she was ready to go back to her room.  Matthew slept on the other bed in her room and I stayed in our room.  I knew I would have to feed Rives in a few hours and didn’t want to expose him to more germs than necessary.

I had the hardest time settling down because my adrenaline was pumping through me after seeing Elyn’s temp so high.  That is scary!

The girls woke up this morning, feeling a little better and with lower temperatures.  Praise God!

They are now snuggled up in the same room, the “sick room”, watching movies and reading books and coloring.  They have already told me a million times that they are “bored” and want to know when they can leave the room.  Ha ha ha!

We are keeping them in the room until their temps can stay down, without medicine.  We do not want to take a chance with Rives getting sick!

Since we got home yesterday afternoon I have cleaned all three bathrooms, washed every single article of clothing, all the sheets, the comforters, all our towels, I have Cloroxed most surfaces and have washed my hands until they are raw.  I have also started spraying saline up Rives nose in an effort to wash the virus out-ha!

Please pray for our sweet family, especially these girls!