Strep-o-rama

I feel like I am surrounded with illness, but somehow I have avoided catching any of it. I've spent a lot of my time with my sickies. They rest, I knit. I'm making my first pair of knitted mittens. After scoping out lots of patterns on Ravelry, I picked "Whoville Mittens" by Linsaypai. I loved the care she took with her patterns and her mittens looked comfortable. I simply changed out the colors a bit.


A few weeks back the sick-o-rama started with Ellie's weeping sore that was almost 3" across on her scalp. She had hit her head on the banister to the stairs and injured herself. As it began to heal she scratched at it. The injury contracted a Staff infection. That day she called me from school telling me she was turning into a dinosaur. The infection had caused the lymph nodes on her neck to become swollen and hard. It looked like someone had pushed a line of peanut M&Ms under her skin. The nodes closer to her collar bone were large and swollen, looking like skin colored slugs. That was followed by a 102 degree fever. We saw the doctor the next day and got her on some amazing antibiotics. A day and a half later, Ethan became ill, too. Then two days later it was Larr who was sick. His was so bad that he needed Vicodin for the pain. They all finished all of their meds. On Sunday Ellie was back to feeling sick. By Sunday night it was clear that we needed to do something. Our friend who was a doctor recommended we take her to the ER since she had some of the signs for Meningitis. We called Kaiser and the nurse agreed. Ellie and I showed up at Children's at about 10:00 on Sunday evening. They could tell right away that she did not have Meningitis (what a relief that was!) but they thought she might have Mononucleosis. They told us to give her some probiotics and take her home. Two days later they called to say that she had strep, again. That most likely means that she done not have Mono. The Ethan became ill again and is back on stronger drugs. Now Larr has a swollen throat and is off to the doctors to get it checked out.

We've spent so much time at the doctor's office that I feel like they might be able to build a new wing from so many copays and filled prescriptions.

I am even surrounded by sickies in every class.

Still, I am feeling mostly okay, except for my throat, it is feeling a little funky...