February Flu x4

The flu struck the Blackham house!  Keaton started it, with a fever and a cough. He stayed home starting on a Tuesday and missed school for the rest of the week. Colton came home mid-day Thursday, and Cooper joined them on Friday. I did too. This flu laid us low for a solid week, and still took some recovery time after that. Some of the "highlights" this time around were ...

• High Fevers: Keaton  hit 103.8° and Colton 104.8°. Thank heavens for the easy "roll across the forehead" thermometer as we were needing to take so many on so many different people. The kids almost treated it as a competition (who's the highest??) Medication did bring the fevers down.
• Major Medication: We went through two big bottles of the children's ibuprofen. I had to send Gray to the store for more. We used Delysm for the cough, but it didn't seem very effective. We tried cough drops, cough "suckers" and Vicks rub. Even broke out the humidifier. 
• SORE throats: It was SO bad, I've never been in so much pain (childbirth? no problem!) I think the coughing actually tore up our throats leaving open sores. I tried every pain medication in our cabinet, even had Gray pick up some of that throat spray. Nothing really helped, except constant sipping of cool drinks and downing popsicles and Icee cups.
• Buckets and Blood: Coughing and congestion lead to times when the kids felt like they were going to throw up, although they never really did. I kept a bucket close, and as Colton heaved over it, I noticed there was actually stuff in the bucket. It was blood. It was quite alarming, but I determined it was from his nose, not from his stomach. Still disconcerting ... and it happened more than once.
• Poop Problems: Not sure if it was the sickness or the medication throwing the body off, but the kids had to constantly rush to the bathroom and there were many little squirt accidents. Lots of laundry and changing of sheets.
• Dry Lips: Although we tried to stay hydrated, I don't know if we were successful. All of our lips suffered. They would crack and bleed.
• No Energy but No Sleep: None of us had any energy to anything but lay around all day. But at night, the sleep wouldn't come (the coughing wouldn't help). I got up once at 4:00 in the morning and wandered into the kitchen for a popsicle, and all three boys were also awake. Sick party!
• Eating Issues: Everyone pretty much lost their appetite as well. When we tried to eat, things didn't taste good. And of course I wasn't really up for making dinner, so the non-sickies were pretty much on their own (I had made dinner shortly before and so there were some leftovers, and my VT teachers brought in dinner). 
• Cup Overload: Millions of little medicine cups, and tons of drinking cups. Usually we're a fairly familiar family, not really stressing about germs, sharing cups. But now we were trying to keep everyone separate and the dishwasher was always full!
• Vanishing Voices:  Colton and Cooper got quite squeaky. I lost my voice completely for an entire week. I would whisper, or clap to get the kids attention ... the boys made fun of me!

 

Sickies always camp out on the couch. We move a couple stools over to hold drinks and such (so we had three stools, one for each kid). The boys each missed five full days of school. Keaton missed a couple basketball games. I usually exercise for at least an hour a day, but I've had to take a couple weeks off working out.

We thought Callahan was coming down with it too, he got a fever, cough and sore throat, but it only lasted a day ... not quite sure what he did right! Landon and Gray were also spared.

Farewell flu ... hope to NOT see you around soon!