Now Kate is on Antibiotics!

Illness has been going through the family. Scott had influenza. I have my weird glands and just finished my antibiotic and am feeling better so far. Now, Kate is the one taking her turn. 

On a side note - before I get to the real point of this post (Kate being sick), I must document (because I don't think I can put it to words enough) that I am amazed with Kate. She is the coolest kid. She is so much fun right now. She loves school (Thank you Mrs. Juarez and Mrs. Ridges!). She is going through this "research" kick and loves to search for animals on the internet and in library books. She has been compiling a "report" about each animal in a Word document. She is so cute about it. As she is doing it she thanks me for helping her and tells me how much fun it is. We've learned some cool things together. We've had some good laughs looking at pictures of giraffes trying to spread their front legs so they can bend down for a drink of water. You should have seen that girl try and mimic the giraffe. In the process of mimicking the giraffe, she got herself stuck in a bar-stool and took 3 minutes trying to get herself untangled from it! Kate is great in every way and this week, her and I have had some wonderful, quality time together.

So, on with my real topic of the day... Kate is sick. She woke up early Friday morning - around 4:30 - and told me that her tummy, neck, and head hurt. She was cute about it. I think it was her first headache and she couldn't understand what she was feeling. And the way her tummy hurt, she couldn't decide if she was going to throw up or if she was hungry. This was all unusual for Kate, who is usually a healthy girl and a terrific sleeper. She's had a few bad dreams here and there and she's wet the bed a dozen times but those days are long gone. I can't remember the last time she's had a sleep disturbance.

So I spent some time with her, trying to help alleviate her symptoms. I rubbed her tummy, neck, and head with diluted peppermint oil. I put a cool rag on her head. I gave her some ice chips and offered her a slice of bread. After an uncomfortable hour for her, she went back to bed with a bowl in case she felt like throwing up. I couldn't sleep knowing that she was feeling crummy. A few hours later, when she normally woke up and prepared for school, I asked her if she felt better. She claimed that she did. She said her legs hurt. I wondered if she was going through growing pains and that maybe her tummy hurt earlier because she was hungry and needed more food. Yet, at breakfast she barely touched her cinnamon toast. But she said she felt great. So, off to school she went. I even had a friend come over to play with her after school. After her friend left, I noticed Kate hadn't eaten her Doritos from her lunch, very odd. Before dinner, she complained that her neck and stomach hurt again. But after she ate (again not as much as usual) she claimed she felt better.

I started to worry about my diagnosis. If she really had "growing pains" she would be ravenous.

Earlier that day, I had spoken to my sister and mentioned that I thought Kate was going through growing pains and my sister had thrown out that maybe it was strep throat. Strep sounded absurd to me. But after hearing Kate say that her stomach and neck were hurting again I began to really put it together. I told Scott that I thought we should consider taking Kate to the Kids Care Clinic right after dinner.

Then I thought about the money and I wondered if I was overreacting. But Kate is always so tough. If she is mentioning something, it's big. She doesn't act like this. I started putting everything together and we headed out. But even on our way there we second guess ourselves again. We stop and look up the symptoms of strep on our phone. We were literally going in circles. Finally we both decide, enough! And we drive to the Kid's Care. We decided that it's worth $35 just to know for sure and put it behind us.

Even the doctor was iffy about the diagnosis when she was examining Kate and talking with us about her symptoms. Nothing really screamed Strep to her either but it was fishy, nonetheless.

Much to the doctor's surprise the strep culture came back positive. Scott and I were so relieved to get it right. Knuckles all around (note to self, always listen to my big sister).

So it's 8:00 p.m. ish and we head to Wallgreens to fill our after hours prescription.

We explained to Kate that she needed to stay away from people for 24 hours so the medicine could clear out the bacteria, otherwise she would be contagious and get other people really sick. Kate started crying and realized that she would miss her friend's birthday party she was invited to go to Saturday afternoon. She was crazy-sweet about it too! She was worried because she knew that some of the other girls invited couldn't attend and she couldn't bear to think that her friend wouldn't have anyone at her birthday party. But she was sad for herself too. She'd already missed the last birthday party that she was invited to in December because we went out of town. She just didn't want to miss this and I could tell that she understood that she was supporting her friend by attending. And then she said, "She's like my BFF! I have to go!"

So, Kate is on her 10-day stretch of antibiotics the same day I finish mine! Yogurt anyone?