It always happens. One kid gets sick, and you do whatever it takes to prevent the rest of your house from picking up whatever nasty bug he or she came home with. You disinfect, you launder, you scour surfaces with Lysol, wash hands over and over and over and over, and assign specific water bottles to each member of your household to prevent germ spread. You quarantine the sick child to a room of his own, and you have him wear a mask. You even wear a mask because #momscantgetsick. And, no matter how far you go, inevitably, the germs spread.
I remember it was always so bad when my kids were babies, especially the twins, who were seriously sick ALL. THE. TIME. I always held out hope that I would escape illness, and somehow only have one sick baby. But you know how these things go. A few days into the sickness, and “another one bites the dust.” We’ve even had strep throat make the rounds through all of our kids and back around to the original carrier! And so it goes in a large family.
We recently had a nasty bug enter our home. Our sick babe was throwing up, coughing, and dealing with some pretty nasty aches, a sore throat, and a really, really high fever. After a trip to the doctor confirmed that it was, in fact, the flu, our pediatrician prescribed a medication called Tamiflu for the other three kids.The hope was that, were they to catch this bug, it would lessen the severity of the symptoms and potentially the duration of the illness. I was grateful for the hope that this lovely medication gave me as I looked at three of my still-healthy kids.
The new year brings a clean slate in so many ways. But one of the ways that always gives me a shock is the clean slate on our deductible. I left the pharmacy $511 later, hopefully armed with all of the prescriptions I would need to battle this flu over the next five days for all four of my children (three of whom had yet to show symptoms).
It was a sound plan. Really, it was. The only problem was this medicine tasted NASTY. I even tasted it myself after watching my first child, who usually sucks down medicine with nary a whimper, choke on it. This stuff was DISGUSTING.
During those next five days, I leaned in to all the bribes. I had the kids chase it with ice water, apple juice, milk, and even a little piece of chocolate for the few times we were getting desperate. We typically avoid media during the week, but I was not above bribing with promises of Netflix to chase away the inevitable tears that ensued after telling the kids that it was time to take the medicine. Desperate times call for desperate measures!
Thankfully, for one of the first times that I can remember, our household managed to remain healthy and avoid this nasty bug, save the child who originally got sick. A New Year’s miracle, I tell you! I am certain that our ability to avoid “the ripple effect” was one in a million, but I will take the dispensation from this one, and run as fast as I can to the store for some more vitamins!
