We Be Illin'
January came and went and February is nearly over. Wow!
Basically, January was a very tough month for us and I just didn't have the bandwidth to post any updates until now. **Warning: Debbie Downer Post**
Remember when Bettie caught some kind of virus the week of our Christmas travels? Well, it has taken her nearly two months to get well. TWO MONTHS! This poor kid has had fevers on and off, horrible congestion, croupy cough, a sinus infection & a double ear infection. The doctors had her on 3 different sets of antibiotics trying to clear the ear infection so it doesn't damage her hearing again, but none of them really worked. After 30 days (yes, thirty) of antibiotics we said enough is enough and took her off everything. I don't even want to know what damage all of those antibiotics did to her poor little body. Oh and she had an allergic reaction to one of the OTC cold medicines. Great.
Both Bettie and I were up all night, every night for most of January. She couldn't breathe because of her congestion and I was averaging 2-4 hours of fractured sleep every night for a month plus. It was beyond brutal!
I discontinued the antibiotics and we are using a more holistic approach which is actually working! She is off dairy completely (after a 6 week gluten-free trial failed to yield results), getting steam baths with eucalyptus essential oil, mentholatum rub, benadryl in the morning and evening to dry her out & help with allergies, saline nasal rinses 3x daily & "Just for kids organic cold care herbal tea". After just a week on this new regimen, Bettie is 90% well. It's amazing.
Quade got a different virus and was really sick for about a week. Then he had a bad reaction to his polio vaccine. He had a fever for 5 days and was just miserable. A fever for a day or so is normal, but not five. He is back to his regular, active and chatty self now.
Andy and I were sick also. I got the flu and it was the sickest I've been in years. Because I was up with Bettie all night, every night, I didn't have the energy to get well myself. That and being pregnant, I'm not able to take any medicines except for Sudafed which does nothing. I was desperate to get some good cough medicine, but I just waited it out because I didn't want to take anything that might harm the baby of course. So Bettie & I were both so sick for so long. The flu cycled through the family TWICE.
Oh and we got pink eye twice also. Here I was bragging that no one in the family had been sick all year and then BAM - we got slammed.
Thankfully, we are all well now. The weather has been gorgeous and we are starting to get caught up with school activities, which means parent meetings, education classes, workshops & report writing for me but it's all really beneficial. The kids didn't have a birthday party this year, but we may have a half-birthday party in the Summer for them. We are back on track now and it feels good!
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