Enough Already

I have to type very quietly (which slows me down...grrr) because the Fuzz is in her crib resting. She came home from daycare yesterday w/a fever. She seems to cough a lot at night (a product of the sinus legacy both her father and I cursed her with), but she's coughing even more now. You know, like ME.

A quick timeline...

Week and a half before Christmas: Claire comes down with terrible cold---snotty, feverish, yucky

Week before Christmas: Mommy catches said cold. Mommy can actually verbalize her misery, so she whines a lot and swallows many Dayquil.

New Year's Eve: Claire comes home from daycare. She's sleepier than usual. I pay no mind because she sometimes won't nap for them. I should have paid mind. I hold her, she lifts her head up long enough to puke all over me, puts head back down. I spend half the night changing bed clothes and Claire every time she vomits. New Year's Day is spent recovering w/Pedialyte, toast, and applesauce.

Day after New Year's: Yep. Mommy is puking. Mommy spends the rest of the day recovering w/ginger ale and crackers.

Week following New Year's: My ears begin to hurt. My sinuses begin to hurt. Then my ears shut completely. They hurt BAD and I have a fever. Off to the doctor I go. Severe ear infection, possible punctured ear drum. Fourteen-day course of high-dose antibiotics. A week later I am forced to go see the ear, nose, and throat doctor because my left ear has not opened. Now added to the antibiotic is a six-day course of steroids.

Friday, February 28: Claire had come home the night before w/glassy eyes, one of them "gunky." Claire wakes up the next morning (Feb. 28) w/diarrhea. I convince myself it's something she ate. She is happy and running around as always. I get her ready and drive her to daycare. As we pull into the daycare parking lot, I hear her whimper. I get out of the car, open her door, smell her, promptly get back into the car and drive us right back home. Drag the Pedialyte back out. Bananas. Rice. Applesauce. Toast. I've got the BRAT diet down pat.

Sunday, March 2: I go meet my friend, Jodi, in Columbia. Best friends since our childhood in Pennsylvania, she is now in Edgewater, MD, with a baby (Ava) 4 1/2 months older than Claire (Ava was born on my birthday!!). I haven't seen her since October. We are both w/o babies, which of course is a miracle. The whole time I'm there my stomach feels crappy. I make it home in time to...sigh...puke. I continue the rest of the evening and into Monday chained to the bathroom.

Tuesday, March 4: I notice my throat is feeling dangerously close to sore. I'm coughing every once in a while. You must be joking. By the weekend, I can't swallow and I am coughing profusely, my eyes now gunky (see Feb. 28). On Monday I beg my doctor to see me. Swab test confirms strep throat (which I also had last August). The rest of the crap...headache, coughing, gunky eyes...is a virus that has to run its course. I get penicillin for the throat.

Wednesday evening, March 5: I stay home from work to rest, as I'm getting no sleep at night from coughing. I pick Claire up from daycare at 5:30 and notice she's warm. We get home, she eats normally (well, better than normally because it's mac and cheese--her fave--w/hidden pureed cauliflower and raspberries for dessert). We sit down and she is listless, so I put Elmo on and she sits very quietly and watches the whole DVD. That is not like her. She feels warmer. She is coughing more. I take her to change her into PJs and take her temp. 100.2.

TODAY: Home from work again. Claire home w/me. Coughing and fever. Mom is on her way from Pennsylvania, because she knows I'm at my wit's end. I'm so tired of being sick. I just want us to be healthy. It's the one thing I detest about daycare..the constant exchange of germs. Claire gets it, I get it, I give it back to her...it never ends.

Let's hope the fresh air of spring knocks this out once and for all.