Didn't Beth Die From That?

Scarlet Fever has hit the RainyDay house. Happy happy joy joy! Thankfully, it's not of the "Little Women" death variety.

Elliot woke with a high fever around eleven Saturday night. At 5am we shot out of bed to cries of "I'm going to throw up!!!" The fever continued all day. We did drag him outside on a nature walk at a new trail we found. He loved it, but was shivering and threatening to throw up again as we were leaving. And was asleep within moments of getting home, fever raging once more.

He woke in a sweat after his nap and I was hoping that the fever had broken and he would start feeling better. He asked for a snack, which was promising, but as the afternoon went on, he looked more and more pitiful and refused to eat and drink. I called our Nurse Link line and they said it sounded like strep (he'd started saying his throat hurt, but wouldn't let me look inside his mouth). There's only 1 walk in clinic open in the city on Sundays, but they were full. I figured I could get him into his doctor the next morning, so we were waiting.

His fever didn't respond to Advil. It kept going up, which is the opposite of down. We had a car for the evening, as my mom was visiting, so Jay and I decided to take him to the ER. I felt silly when the intake nurse wrote "sore throat" as the reason for the visit. But he needed medicine. After a long wait, we made it into a room to wait even more for a doctor. As I was changing him into the hospital gown, I saw the rash on his stomach and sides. The nurse scribbled a note and we waited more.

When the doctor finally came in, she was gowned, gloved and masked. Yep, we were a contagion. She didn't do a swab, but said it was most likely strep and prescribed antibiotics. She didn't comment on the rash, but fever? nasty sore throat? rash? simply screams scarlet fever to me. Especially since there was a confirmed case at his preschool a week ago. Poor kid. I hope we didn't infect everyone in the Santa line on Saturday. Bad parents!

To add another dollop of fun to this mixture, Felix has an ear infection and a body-shaking smoker's cough. I had both boys home with me all.day.yesterday. And the power went out due to high winds and rain. We're all home again today. I'm pretty well shot. And trying not to shoot them. We have errands to do, but the boys are rather feral from being sick and cooped up and I don't dare turn them loose on the world.

Time for an arts & crafts and baking day! I want to recycle some crayons. Put up the Christmas decorations? Make cookies? Homemade play dough? Gingerbread house? Tea party?  Hmmm, the toys and laundry do need to be put away. And someone should tackle all the dishes and crap in the kitchen. Speaking of crap, the cat litter needs to be changed as the Floor Pooper struck again.

Screw it. We'll be parked in front of the TV all day.