Sick

**Warning: This post is mostly my venting and feeling sorry for myself. Also, it contains descriptive bodily functions. Do not read on if you care for neither.**

I think last year, around this time I had a similar post. A post having to do with how sick we all are. Besides the year both my kids were in the hospital for a week, this winter has been the worst sick winter yet. And what better place to complain about it than on my blog? I think it's best to document it so I can look back and say, "Hey it's not so bad this year...look how bad it was in 2013. Man that was rough."

First it started out with a cold. One small little cold. Thanks to the Mordor-like air in Utah, that turned into a constant cough. That cough turned into body-wracking jolts. Those jolts turned into rib-cracking, throw-up inducing heaves. Needles to say, I submitted myself to the doctor (that's when you know it's bad) and was diagnosed with inflammatory bronchitis and put on an inhaler. That inhaler has worked wonders and I'm doing much better. I still have a cough and I still am not allowed to exercise (what do you know that exacerbates it? I didn't dare tell the doctor I ran three miles while sick, he probably would have told me I deserved it. Isn't exercising supposed to help you get better faster? Ok, not all the time. But how was I supposed to know this was one of those cases?) but I am a functioning person again.

It's a good thing because both my kids have decided they want nursing to be my full time position around here. They too got the cold. Ammon's sounded like death-croup but after a few steam baths, I thought he was doing good. Until he got worse. After nights of no sleep because of his constant body-wracking, choking coughs, I dragged him to the doctor because I was afraid he had bronchitis too. Luckily, he was diagnosed with only a viral infection and I was told he'd be better soon. I'm still waiting for his snot faucet in the middle of his face to turn off and his coughs to go away, but it has subdued somewhat.

Lydia. Oh Lydia. It all started with a rash the shape of Africa over the ride side of her chest. It was big, and red, and bumpy. We circled it with marker to make sure it didn't get bigger, otherwise we were going to take her in. It got a little bit bigger but then slowly went away. It was the weirdest thing ever. Then the diarrhea hit. It was so bad that my girl who has had like five accidents total, including during potty training week, was reduced to wearing pull-ups because she just couldn't get control. Poor thing. She too had a cough and runny nose. Then the projectile puke begin. I swear, she wouldn't drink or eat a thing and yet she'd find SO much stuff to puke up. Every day. All day. She also developed another rash that would show up in weird places on her body, disappear, and then show up somewhere else. Then she started crying because her ear hurt. So I dragged her to the doctor too. Yep, ear infection. And she has lost so much weight from not keeping anything in her, that she doesn't even weigh two pounds more than what she did a year ago. The on-call doctor we saw was worried enough about her that he had her regular doctor call to check up the next day, and told me to bring her in two days later if things didn't start getting better. Luckily, the antibiotics stayed down and she seems to be improving. Please oh please, let her be improving.

Just when I thought we would make it, Ammon cried ALL day today. All day. I was about to lose it. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, but I knew something was up when he wouldn't touch his crackers at lunch. If the boy who eats everything didn't want CRACKERS then something was wrong. I put him down for his nap early and he want right to sleep, also weird. Then at dinner he was eating one saltine (we're having a lot of chicken noodle soup and saltines around here) and projectile vomited everywhere. I swear I don't know where it all comes from when they haven't hardly been eating. Ah, now it was all clear. He's got the stomach bug from Lydia. No wonder his diaper was all diarrhea this morning. Now to look forward to four days of barfing from my boy. The poor kid laid un-moving on the couch all night watching Baby Einstein movies (seriously those movies are genius!), and usually that boy will not hold still to save his life. That's how bad he feels.

So we've got bronchitis, viral infections, ear infections, puking and diarrhea and strange rashes. All going on at once. Do you understand why I'm venting?

Brigham seems to remain unscathed. Probably because he's either never home, or shut up doing homework. I'm glad because he doesn't have time to be sick, and he's relieved of all this madness. Needless to say, I'm tired. I'm tired of being sick and having to take care of sick kids. I'm tired of being stuck at home bored out of my mind with sick kids. I'm tired of seeing my kids so miserable. And I'm just plain sick of being sick around here! There's nothing so draining as sick toddlers, especially when you're sick yourself and your one stress outlet of exercise is taken away from you (though I cheated a bit today). Winter bites! I've never been so glad to see January pass by and be that much closer to ending the flu season.

I was posting about this on Facebook, pathetically looking for sympathy and help keeping this from ever happening again and here are some great ideas I got. Maybe a few people would like to experiment and tell me if they work.

When asking how to keep my kids from getting sick during winter it was suggested that I keep both my kids in a plastic bubble.

Effective, but unrealistic.

Feed them kefir (a health food that I actually might try).

Looks gross, and I'd have to go to a lot of trouble to make it, but it's supposed to be great.

Or put them in 24/7 quarantine with 90% ethanol baths twice a day.

24/7 quarantine would be unbearable, I know because that's where we are now, and Ethanol baths = death baths

Hmm, interesting methods, but I might just get desperate enough to try them if things continue on as they are. So there you go. My yearly winter madness blog about my sickness woes. Probably first world problems, but they are indeed grievous to me.