When it rains...it pours....

and I'm not referring to the 11 straight days of rain here in Houston!

Sickness. Everywhere. Ugh!

It all began about 2 weeks ago when Maggie did something (who knows what?!) to her middle finger. Somehow it got infected and was getting pretty nasty. This had happened one other time before (actually during Hurricane Ike) and so I knew that she needed to get on some more antibiotics. So I called to make an appointment on Thursday for the following day, but they were actually going to be closed on Friday for the 4th of July holiday and would be opened on Monday. Ok. Fine. Scheduled it. In the meantime, Maggie was coughing...and coughing...and coughing...and it wasn't getting any better. However, over the long weekend, while taking one of her super long baths, the skin broke on her finger and it was almost instantly better. That was good...but her cough was bad. So, I was glad that I had the appointment.

On my day off from work (oh the joys of a out of the home working momma!), Maggie and I trekked up to her pediatrician and she was diagnosed with a bad case of bronchitis and also the flu. How in the world did this girl have the flu? She didn't even have a fever up until the time she was sitting in the room at the dr's office. They said she had the swine flu, but I'm not sure that's even possible, being that they usually have to send the cultures off for those results. I checked with her teacher at school and none of the other kids have been out sick, and we hadn't been around any sick kiddos/adults either. Hmmmmm.....anyway, we walked out of there with more albuterol, a cough medication, Tamiflu and Ibuprofen. This is one of those times that we are more than thankful for her Medicaid! The dr said that if she didn't improve, to bring her back in due to possible pneumonia (she sounded pretty raspy that day).

I still can't figure out how someone hasn't come up with a good cough syrup or remedy because NOTHING and I mean nothing has ever worked for Maggie and her coughs. That poor thing! The nights are especially difficult and due to all her congestion, she hasn't been able to sleep with her CPAP machine - which has just increased her sleeplessness.

Tuesday, was my turn to go to the doctor. The previous Thursday evening, I noticed that I had a small bite on my upper thigh but didn't think much of it. By Friday morning, it was quite iritated and hurt pretty bad. That same day, I was bit by something on my face in 2 different places while at work. All in all, 3 bites and no idea of what they were or how it happened. Again, they itched badly but I figured it would just go away. WRONG. I was absolutely miserable all weekend and even debated on going to the ER, because all 3 sites were highly infected and extremely painful. But I just kept telling myself that they would get better and to just suck it up.

Needless to say, I was in the dr's office on Tuesday ready to have my face and leg cut off :) So, I'm sitting in the room and my doctor (who is more like a friend and about my same age) walks in and says - hey what's up (without looking at me). Then he turns to me and says "OMG - what happened to your face?!" Of course, I said well, if you think that's bad, just take a look at this (my thigh). He literally jumped back and said - "whoa - that must hurt like a mother!" And he was right. He said he couldn't tell exactly what had bitten me but the sites were highly infected and they needed to be drained. OH great. Just what I wanted. He told me to lay back, relax and take a deep breath. Oh. My. Word. He did "deaden" it (if you can even call it that) but that shot to deaden it was horrible. Then he proceeded to cut open the site on my thigh... and well, let's just leave it at that, as I don't want to disgust anyone. A few minutes later, my 3 sites were either cut and/or drained and I was walking out of the office. Oh yeah, and I also have bronchitis.

Now, it's Wednesday and Maggie isn't any better....so I take her to the ER since her pediatrician can't perform a chest xray. The cough was worse and the chest xray did show a small spot on her left lung. It was very small but they wanted to treate it conservatively, so she was put on another mediation.

Today, I finally returned to work and made it half a day. Came home and crashed.

Like I said, when it rains, it pours...and here's to praying for a drought!