Thursday, November 5, 2009

Menace II Society

Well I officially lost my Mommy of the Year award this last week and it wasn't even for endangering my own children. I have so much guilt over this that I almost just tried to sideswipe the whole issue and not blog about it but we all make mistakes, right?

So as I mentioned in the Halloween post, Jake came home from school last Thursday feeling "yucky". On Friday, when he woke up with a low grade fever, I decided I didn't want to chance anything since he hadn't been vaccinated with either flu vaccine (H1N1 or the regular Influenza). Since his ped's office was closed, I hauled him to urgent care and the doctor assured me he had an upper respiratory infection and to give him lots of fluids and wait it out. I requested that he be swabbed for flu and given Tami-Flu, just for peace of mind and the doctor basically gave in, I felt just to get me off his back.

So when Jake started feeling better that same afternoon, even before his first dose of Tami-Flu, I decided that I had indeed overreacted. He had no fever and said he felt fine, even before he realized what he would have been missing. Therefore, we proceeded to take him trunk-or-treating at his school. Then on Saturday, we let him play in his soccer game and that night we went trick-or-treating as well. The only activity we bypassed was going to my brother's house for their Halloween party.

By Sunday, Jake was fine save for a minor cough, which is his MO for most viruses but that night Jadyn woke up with a sore throat and crying that she didn't feel good. No real surprise that Jake had passed on his illness to her. Monday morning, Jadyn was laid up with a fever but Jake was more than ready to return to school.

So imagine my surprise when I get a phone call from the doctor at urgent care around 2pm Monday with Jake's test results, which were POSITIVE FOR H1N1. Oops. Actually that doesn't do it justice. Major oops!

Jadyn's fever broke later Monday evening but now knowing what we were dealing with, we kept her home from preschool and everything else for the past two days. Jake is no longer contagious, although if I would have known, or even thought that his swab was going to be positive, I would have kept him home all weekend and home from school on Monday too. I am usually the one to err on the side of caution when it comes to making sure my kids don't infect others.

So I am trying not to beat myself up over this. It was an honest mistake. However, I still feel kind of bad. The good news is that now we have it out of the way and it was rather mild (I highly recommend the Tami-Flu by the way). So far Joe and I (knock on wood) haven't exhibited any symptoms but I am starting to think when I was sick a few weeks ago, that I may have had it then. The symptoms were definitely similar.

And cold/flu season hasn't even officially began. It's going to be a LONG winter.

By the way - the picture of Jake and Jadyn from yesterday's Wordless Wednesday was taken Monday night. Jadyn was laying on top of Jake with her arms draped around him and they were being complete hams. That shot of them has instantly become a classic favorite in my book.

2 comments:

Steph said...

You know what, you were smart to have him get the tamiflu while he was there. That must have helped him a lot. Hope everyone feels better at your house soon!

I was nervous that Cooper was getting sick last night because he kept saying his stomach felt ill, but he was just hungry because he skipped snack at preschool (he refused the quesadillas). Can you tell I'm nervous about the flu this year too? :)

Joanna said...

I'm still clueless as to what Michael had last week that caused the random evening puking. I confess, since he wasn't running a fever, I still let him trick-or-treat with the neighborhood kids even though he had thrown up an hour before. So really, who am I to judge you?

I'm glad the kids are ok and that you now have H!N! out of the way.