The double whammy

I was washing the dishes when I started feeling cold.  Not the put-a-jacket-on type cold, but the I-think-I’m-coming-down-with-something kind.  A short time later, the aches came, along with the feeling that I needed to lay down and do nothing except be miserable.

When Daniel woke up from his nap, we went outside.  He and Hannah played in the sandpit while I laid on a picnic blanket soaking up some vitamin D to hopefully make me feel a bit better.  I did feel better while I was out there, but it was unfortunately short lived.

The next day was my fortnightly all day uni day.  I always have to go to uni once per week for 2 hours, but every other week I have a four hour workshop an hour after my usual class.  There was no way I’d last the whole day.

I dropped the kids off at preschool and daycare, came home, and laid on the couch, missing my lecture.  I popped some Panadol before heading out to my workshop so that I’d hopefully feel well enough to participate.  Workshops are compulsory after all.  Usually if someone is sick on the day, they can just go to a workshop on a different day, but mine is the very last one, so that’s not exactly possible.  I’m sure I could get a doctors certificate and then have to do some sort of other make up work, but we were making bread.  Every time I try to make bread, it turns out to be almost rock solid, caved in on the top, and not quite edible.  We were also doing sciencey things with the bread, but I was mostly interested in the bread making itself.

Lucky for me, the Panadol did it’s job and I was ok for the whole workshop.  My awesome lab partner (who funnily enough, worked for the same company in the same building at the same time as Aaron many years ago, but they didn’t know each other) and I followed the instructions to a tee, even taking the temperature of the water so it was exactly 35 degrees, in hopes that our bread would be awesome.

Only it wasn’t.  Out of the whole class, our bread was the very worst.  It wasn’t nearly as bad as all the loaves I’ve tried to make at home, but it wasn’t good either.  I guess I’m just not a bread maker.  Sigh.

That tiny loaf in the middle, that’s the one Sophie and I made. As you can kind of see, each one was slightly different. From left to right: Positive control (had flour, yeast, water, salt and all of the bread improvers), negative control (just flour, water, yeast, and salt) Vitamin C (F, W, Y, S, and vitamin C), Enzyme (F, W, Y, S and an enzyme that helps feed the yeast), and Fat (F, W, Y, S, and lard).  Even the negative control loaf was bigger than ours 😦

The Panadol started wearing off on the drive home and as soon as I walked in the door, the couch was calling me.

Yesterday I felt even worse.  I laid on the couch all morning while the kids watched Hiro of the Rails and played trains in the living room, getting increasingly bored with each passing minute.  As soon as 9 o’clock rolled around, we went outside so they could play in the sandpit, on the swings, and on their little tricycles.

“Uh-oh, you’ve got the crazy eye too.” Aaron said when he came home from work. “My  right eye is all red and gross.”

I hadn’t noticed my wonky eye.  I mean I guess I felt that it was uncomfortable, but amongst the chills, aches, fever, and gigantic swollen and sore tonsils, the eye wasn’t on my radar.

“Oh my gosh!” I said when I looked in the mirror and saw one bright red eye with pus coming out of the corner and bottom.

I opened my mouth as wide as I could and had a look at my tonsils.  The right one was still gigantic, and the left almost normal.  Both had pus all over them.

“I think I’d better go to the doctor.” I said to Aaron.

45 minutes later, I was back home with eye drops for the conjunctivitis (pink eye), and a 50 tablet pack of antibiotics for my very bad case of tonsilitis.

At least I’m on the mend now.  My fever is gone, and I think I’m feeling a lot better.  It’s hard to tell since I’m currently laying in my bed, and laying down always made it a bit better, but I’m not freezing or achey.  Just tired, which is understandable since I tossed and turned all last night and the night before.

Ugh, I hate being sick.  How Aaron and I got pink eye and the kids didn’t, I have no idea.

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Conjuntivitis

Click. Whiiiiiirrrrrrr.  The bright light of the bathroom beamed across the hallway and into our bedroom, accompanied by the sound of the fan that automatically turns on with the light, waking both Aaron and me up simultaneously.

“What time is it?” Aaron asked me as he poked his head up off the pillow, still half asleep.

“4:30.”

Hannah was in the bathroom, fiddling with something.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“I ran out of water, I’m just filling up my cup.”

Um, ok. As you do at 4:30 in the morning. But that’s the way things have been going around here the last couple of days.  Hannah is sick.

It started out as one little eye goober (or sleep as the Aussies call it, and then look at me like I’m from Mars when I say goober) on Saturday morning.  Sometimes people just get goobers.  Maybe an eyelash was in her eye and then a protective goober formed around it until the eyelash was removed. These things happen.  We didn’t think anything of it.

Except by 3:30, both of Hannah’s eyes looked like someone with a particularly nasty sinus infection had blown their nose straight into Hannah’s eyes.  I was wiping them with a warm damp cloth every few minutes.

She started getting testier and testier.  If she asked for something and I gave it to her, she’d scream cry saying she wanted something else, which is totally unlike her.

My googling skills told me that Hannah most likely had bacterial conjuntivitis.

Photo courtesy of WebMD. Hannah’s was a lot worse than this though, and more greenish than yellowish, but you get the idea

No doctors offices were open by that time on a Saturday afternoon, so I called the after hours GP service.  Just quietly, it is much easier using them than going to the doctor anyway.

Every time I take the kids to the doctor, Daniel runs around and around the little Hallway that connects at both ends to the main room and makes the most perfect running around like a crazy person circle.  Running around in circles would not be complete without deafeningly loud squeals of delight, drawing attention from all of the other annoyed sick people who are nicely sitting in their chairs staring at me and wondering why I can’t control my children.  Yes, children.  Because when Daniel is running around the hallway circle, Hannah doesn’t want to be left out, and she joins in too.

I could make them sit down and read, but if I take Daniel away from his delightful hallway circle, he arches his back, screams like I’m trying to murder him and then starts flailing to the point where I can’t hold on to him and just have to lay him on the floor to carry out his tantrum so I don’t end up accidentally dropping him on his head.  I would prefer hallway running in delight than everyone staring at us for tantruming on the floor like a giant fish out of water any day, thank you very much.

The after hours doctors come to your house.  And it doesn’t cost me any more than it does to visit the regular doctor (both of which are covered by medicare).

I was right, bacterial conjunctivitis.  Also known in the U.S. as pinkeye, but apparently from the confused looks I got when I said it, not here.

She didn’t even cry when I put the horrible drops in her eyes.  By morning, her goobers had subsided but she still wasn’t allowed to be around other people.  She seemed pretty good on Sunday.  A little tired, a tiny fever, but she was pretty happy and was playing.

Yesterday she looked ok in the morning and then a couple hours later, she had a fever of 40 degrees (104f) and was laying on the couch in misery.  A dose of panadol only brought it down to 37.7, but a lukewarm bath brought it down to 37.1.

We stayed home all day so Hannah could rest.  It was good for Hannah, but Daniel was going stir crazy and being particularly mischievous, drawing on the tv with crayon (FYI, it wipes right off, thank goodness), pulling Hannah’s hair and so forth.

After another dose of panadol before bedtime, Hannah went right to sleep.  I set my alarm and checked on her in the night to make sure her fever didn’t get too high.  Fevers too high in kids can cause convulsions.

I slowly opened the kids’ door, and nearly fall over when I tripped on a toy.  She didn’t feel hot, so I didn’t take her temperature.  Yesterday she felt like she was a furnace.

Hopefully she will be feeling better today. If her little water gathering episode in the bathroom is anything to go by, she will be fine.  She wasn’t hot, and seemed very cheerful and pleased with herself, despite the fact that it was 4:30 in the morning.  Did I mention I’ve been awake ever since?

Sigh.

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