That Scary Time of Year

         Sigh, double sigh, effing sigh again.  Feisty Pants is sick as dog so now I am nervous.  I would have been nervous Friday, but I was way too busy. (Today is a little quieter so I have time to worry. ) She came home early from school on Wednesday.  A fever, but with no other symptoms. Unless you count crabby as a symptom.  I don't.  If I did, I would think we were all sick, all of the time.   We gave her ibuprofen and she would seem fine.  The motrin would wear off and she would cry. But that was all.  For 48 hours.  Friday morning she became mucus-y and goopy and even crabbier. So we called the doc, made an appointment for that very afternoon and then had to jam all our normal Friday stuff in the day somehow. (Grocery shopping, laundry, errands, etc.)  This doesn't sound like a big deal.  Have I mentioned we do not own a car?  (It's simply an extra expense that we don't need. We live in a small city so it's a luxury, not a necessity.)

         Since we were not sure how bad she is going to get, we felt we had to get our stuff done that we had planned. If she were to end up hospitalized, nothing gets done.  Sometimes you can tell an illness is going to be a doozy.  Sometimes you can sense it will not be a big deal.  This one is viral and a little unusual, so we had to hedge our bets. Sooooooo... We dragged Hippie Pants out her bed and nice warm apartment to come watch Feisty Pants and Cheweverything Pants extra early. We then literally powerwalked/hauled ass to do our errands and the grocery store, shopped, came home, and put everything away.   We then did as much laundry as you can in an hour and a half.  Grabbed a taxi and headed for the doctor's office.  Where our pediatrician was not in (Of course, why get sick when it's convenient?  That takes all the sport out of it.) so we saw one his partners who had NOT seen FP before.   To his credit, he did not freak out.  He did however, take a long time- normally a rare and FABULOUS quality in a doc but damn it made the afternoon longer.  Then all over the hospital complex to hit the pharmacy and do what errands we had there. Then waited an hour and a half for the cab back, because obviously we had time to kill not having anything to do.  Then stuffed more laundry into the machine, stuffed Goo into bed (he had been up 26 hours at that point), stuffed FP's oxygen onto her face a million times.  She tends to be a tube puller when cranky. Oxygen, g-tube, feeding adapter, IV's, it's all a tube to be yanked and thrown when she's annoyed.  Oh, and babysat Dinky Pants so his parents could get some stuff done that they didn't do because they were at my place babysitting Feisty Pants.  He's crawling/almost walking now, so he's almost quicker on all fours than I am on twos.   And does not approve of the flavor of puppy food we get Cheweverything Pants.  And told us so in no uncertain terms.  Cheweverything Pants, for her part, does approve of the flavor of laundry detergent we use, which she told us by trying to eat half of FP's clothes.  Fridays are just party time at our house.

            But now, its the weekend, and we managed to get most of our crap done without causing too much mayhem and bloodshed.  Feisty Pants has a nasty, nasty cold. The doctor referred to it as a supercold.  And because it's Feisty Pants, put her on an antibiotic.  It sounds counter intuitive to treat a virus with an antibiotic, but not in FP's case. It's often not a question of IF she will develop a secondary infection from a virus, but when she will get it.  This tactic will hopefully keep her out of the hospital.  And, thankfully, this antibiotic is not one the ones that gives her "digestive issues".  (Most do.)  The doctor, very kindly, warned us that this virus seems to take about a week to clear maybe longer in Feisty Pants' case.  That gives me a time frame in which to NOT worry so much if she seems to take forever to get better.   And everyone has been warned we are plague house (That is what that big x on my door means, right??)  so we probably won't have a lot of people in and out.   If we do, they can't bitch if FP coughs all over them and they turn into zombies.  So, it's now quiet, and we have time to sit around and watch Feisty Pants wheeze and sneeze and cough and complain that everything sucks. And I have time to sit around and wonder what "supercold" means- EV- d68? Ebola? RSV? (Not likely, we have had that one- you can't get that again.  Can you?  Are they sure?)  Ahhhh well, nothing for it but sit around catch up on episodes of the Strain and Walking Dead.  Now, those viruses seem to suck.   Good thing they're not real.  (Are they? Are they sure?)