Strep, Impetigo, Sinusitis, and God Knows What Else

It’s been a long, long time since we’ve updated. What can I say? We’ve been busy. On top of that, we’ve also been sick. All of us. Not for the five months since I last updated, but for the past week or two. It started with Son #4 coming home sick from preschool…

In the beginning

At the time, we though that he just had a nasty virus, but we now suspect that he was a walking bug bomb. His “virus” eventually led to impetigo due to crusty, cracked nostrils. As unfortuante as that sounds, it may have turned out to be a blessing in disguise for him, as we think that the antibiotics took care of something else… Strep.

Anatomy of an outbreak

Last Friday, I came home from work early feeling like crap. Sore throat, achy, and exhausted, I crawled into bed and tried to recover. I felt better when flying high on my ibuprofen/acetaminophen cocktail, but otherwise I suffered through the weekend.

Meanwhile, Son #1 started feeling crappy on Saturday, a situation that deteriorated as time wore on. By Monday he puking and my throat still hurt. On Tuesday morning we went to the doctor. I was diagnosed with strep, whereas Son #1 was diagnosed with sinusitis (the resulting drainage was irritating his throat and upsetting his stomach). I got Omnicef, and he got a Z-Pac.

Puking in triplicate

Around that same time, my wife picked up Son #3 from school with a fever. Son #2 was still fine, so he stayed for the remainder of the day. By evening, they both hurled (after eating some pizza and drinking some red fruit punch). Lovely. Counting Son #1′s pre-dawn hurl, that meant that three of our four kids threw up that day. Son #4 was blissfully ignorant of the havoc that he had created, as he had long since recovered.

Recovery? Not so fast

On Wednesday, I was staring to feel better, but my lovely and talented wife was starting to feel like crap. On top of that, Son #1 was developing a bad cough reminiscent of an earlier bout with pneumonia. And Son #2 was still in pretty rough shape with a fever all day long, dizziness, and a sore throat. So…

This morning my wife, Son #1, and Son #2 all headed back to the doctor. She just called. The good news is that Son #1 doesn’t have pneumonia. Another bit of good news is that nobody else has strep (lucky me!). The bad news is that they’re now all on antibiotics combatting a sinus infection.

And so it goes. At least it’s not H. pylori, and nobody got hurt.