Swine Flu

Friday night Savannah told me she didn't feel great and was going to bed. It was before 10:00 on a Friday! That never happens. When she woke up on Saturday, she had a high fever. She spent most of the weekend sleeping and taking medicine for her aches, sore throat and cough. Yesterday Brooklyn developed a fever. Yesterday afternoon I got a call from the school nurse saying I needed to pick up Lexi because she was running a high fever. I thought Clay was getting it last night, but he escaped.

I almost took Lex to the ER last night because she had a fever over 104 and was so croupy and wheezy, I was concerned. When she threw up her medicine and her eyes started rolling back in her head as she complained of dizziness, I kinda freaked out a bit. I got dressed and prepared to take her to the hospital, but was finally able to bring down her fever and get her breathing under control with the vaporizer.

Brooklyn hasn't stopped crying since she woke up this morning. The poor kid keeps whining that her eyes hurt. :( I was going to take the girls to the doctor this afternoon, but before I could leave, I got another call from the school nurse. "Come pick up Jackson. He has a fever of 103." When I got to the school to pick him up, the nurse said, "Oh, by the way, Clay failed his hearing test twice. You need to get these papers signed by a doctor." Oh joy.

I dropped Jax off at home and ran the girls to the doctor. The doctor swabbed them and lo and behold, they have swine flu. The best part is that the doctor guaranteed that I would get it. Yay! I called Joe on the way home and told him to go to his parents' house for a week or more so he doesn't get the flu on top of recovering from surgery. It's not like he was any help anyway since he'd downed 3 bottles of Tylenol with codeine and had spent the last 3 days completely drugged out of his mind.

So she prescribed Tamiflu for Brooklyn and Relenza for Lexi and Jackson. It was too late for Savannah to get any medicine because she was too many days into the flu. So I went on a 3 hour expedition in search of this medicine for the kids. I went to Walgreens and they didn't have anything there. I drove to Osco and no dice. I asked the pharmacist if he knew of any other pharmacies that might have it in stock and he said, "You'll just have to make some phone calls." Gee thanks, buddy.

I drove home to check on the kids, made a phone call to Target who told me they had the meds and drove over there. I guess I wasn't specific enough on the phone and although they had the Tamiflu for adults, they didn't have the suspension for Brooklyn. So I was able to get one pack of Relenza there. The pharmacist there was awesome, however because she must've called 5 different pharmacies for me. She found a second pack of Relenza at another Target and she found a pharmacy a few towns over that said they'd compound the medicine for Brooklyn. I drove over there and was told they didn't take insurance and it would cost $200. Ugh. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't go home with medicine for everyone but Brooklyn and look into her sick eyes and not feel horrible and guilty. So I gave the go-ahead for them to mix it up and was told they could only make 3 doses tonight and I'd have to come back tomorrow for the other 7 doses. "We'll call you in a couple hours when it's ready, Mrs. Meehan."

So I drove a couple towns over to the other Target and picked up the second pack of Relenza. While I was there, I got a call that Brooklyn's medicine was ready and I needed to pick it up NOW because the pharmacy was closing. Ugh, I quickly drove back to that pharmacy and picked up the 3 doses for Brooklyn (which only cost about $80), ran through McDonald's for the kids and sped home.

I threw the food on the table as the phone rang. It was the conference call I was supposed to have joined 10 minutes earlier. Ugh. I left my sick kids again and disappeared into my room to take the call. When I re-emerged from my room and hung up the phone, Clay told me he didn't feel well. He's running a fever now too. Austin is the only kid left standing.

I feel like a horrible mom, but that feeling is slowly being replaced with a headache and sore throat...