We kind of knew this might be coming. A nasty virus has been making its way around the area this winter. Several of Kate's classmates were out with it a few weeks back; other McFarland friends have caught it; church friends have also struggled with a similar virus. 4-6 days of high fever, aches, chills, low appetite ... classic flu-like symptoms. In some cases, the fever hovered around 104 or 105 for a few days. In other cases, kids went to Urgent Care because of dehydration. Scary stuff.
I took Kate into the doctor on Tuesday morning just to make sure it wasn't strep or something else treatable. When those tests came back negative, I sent her to bed for a few days. Kate's fever never got over 102 (although we kept her medicated with fever reducers almost 24 hours a day), and she had some moments of low energy (as opposed to the rest of the day when she was NO energy). Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday were probably her worst days.
On Thursday, she stayed out of her bed for longer stretches of time, even if it was to just listen to stories on the ipad. By Friday she was willing to do activities with me for short periods of time. By Saturday she was bouncing around for some of the day, but not quite all of the day just yet.
All in all, Kate dealt with this virus relatively well.
Not Ethan and I. Although neither one of us have caught it (yet), we were stuck inside our home for the entire week.
That's a l-o-n-g time for a 3 year old boy and a task-oriented mom.
We played in the sand table. We played cars and trucks. We played with legos. We created jumping games using the kitchen floor pattern. Ethan created a running course in the basement whenever we would start a fire in the fireplace. We painted. We watched some Thomas. And some Dinosaur Train. We read books. We took Anna to school. We picked Anna up.
I cleaned most of the house. I organized a bunch of Ethan's clothes that we have stored in the basement. We sorted through old toys to sell and/or give away. I mopped the kitchen floor on my hands and knees instead of using a mop. On Thursday night when our refrigerator was comically empty (I had planned to do a big grocery shopping trip on Tuesday), Matt suggested that I clean it since I wouldn't have to move much food. I did.
I will be the first to admit that we were going a little nuts.
When it looked like Kate would be out of school again on Thursday, I asked a friend to come and sit with her for the afternoon so that Ethan and I could at least take Anna to her therapy appointments. We had already rescheduled Tuesday's appointment and, honestly, by Thursday we needed to get out of the house.
Friday Kate was feeling well enough to run some errands in McFarland, or at least stay in the van and listen to music while Ethan and I went in.
Towards the end of the week, we needed to start keeping Kate out of bed some of the day; her sleep patterns were really messed up. Here's a sampling of the indoor activities that Kate did on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Lots of legos.
An unfinished bee craft. Now that Kate is feeling better, I doubt this one will get finished. She doesn't normally have much interest in sitting and crafting for long periods of time.
Candy creation. She was slowing down at this point, so we don't get a good representation of Kate's incredible imagination.
Gears, gears, gears ... which Matt got out when I was finally able to go to the grocery store on Saturday morning.
And finally, our masterpiece, a spherical globe puzzle ... all 530 pieces of it, which we put together on Friday while Anna was at school.
.The pieces are numbered, which makes it easier, of course. And we worked together, while Ethan found all of the E's in the box of Scrabble letters. I don't think Kate has ever sat still for that long before. And she was fully engaged until the last 100 or so pieces.
Anna participated in whatever activities were happening while she was home.
Candy creation. (It's raining fruit in a banana tree forest.)
Flower craft, although Anna finished hers on Saturday afternoon.
And gears, of course. (Do you think our kids like patterns?)
Both Ethan and Anna missed their playmate this week. Anna was pretty excited on Saturday when Kate said she was up for playing with stuffed animals with her.
Even with all of my nuttiness towards the end of the week, Matt and I realize that we can roll with these kinds of illnesses in a different way than others can (or even than how we did a few years back).
Neither one of us needed to take time off of work because Kate was sick.
Kate was able to stay home all week, instead of being rushed back to the classroom before she was healthy, simply because she had to.
We were never seriously worried about Kate's health.
Once I knew it was "the fever", I knew it was just a matter of time.
Kate's body historically heals very easily.
But it sounds like this particular bug is relatively contagious. So far the rest of us are in the clear, but it would be an absolute miracle if no one else gets sick. And this coming week would not be a good one for people to be sick. Matt has a big week at work; we have a couple of extra adult appointments throughout the week; and Anna's next MRI is on Wednesday, which also includes close to 10 blood tests.
Only two prayers this time:
Please thank God that Kate is on the mend!
Please pray that God grants us one more miracle and keeps us all healthy this week!
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