A Rude Welcome Into 2011...

January 1st Jane got sick...really uncomfortably sick. Exactly one week later, we discovered, Jane had H1N1 or Swine flu as well as a sinus infection (we think)!!! I was completely stunned- though looking over the past week and how awful it was, it makes sense. Here's how our first week of 2011 went...

Last Saturday, January 1st, Jane came to me complaining that she felt sick. I checked her temperature and she had a fever. I gave her medicine and then she seemed to be fine. She ate dinner and went to bed as usual. Then that night Jane woke up throwing up. The poor girl threw up all night. The next day however, she seemed much better. The throwing up stopped but she had a bit of a cough. So, I decided she needed to stay in her room so Beckham wouldn't get sick. I had hopes that she just had the 24 hour flu and would be better by that night. My mom came and played with Jane and the day went relatively smoothly.

I slept on a blow up mattress in her room that night just to keep an eye on her fever. That Sunday night was awful. I had a front row seat, as I watched Jane's cough get worse and worse as the night went on and her breathing became more labored. I prayed that we would make it through the night so I could take Jane to the Dr. the next day. However, Jane woke up because she was so uncomfortable. She had a fever of 104.4 and she couldn't breath. Her crying was making it harder for her to breath as well. So, I took her to the ER at 1 in the morning. They gave her a steroid shot and it seemed to help a lot. We got home at 4:30 am. She slept a little better that night although she still woke up with a fever and cough the next day.

For the next several days Jane would seem better for a while but than her fever would spike again. It was such a roller coaster. Her temperature got to over 104 degrees three different times even with continual medicine being given- and remained pretty constantly high otherwise. I was frustrated that no doctor I would mention her abnormally high fever to ever took it seriously enough to check it further.

Because I was so worried about how high Jane's fever was, I kept Jane quarantined to her room so Beckham would have more of a chance of not getting sick. This in itself was exhausting. I had to run back and forth between two kids to keep them each happy and it seemed that whenever I would be giving attention to one child the other would be crying for something or wanting attention. I also, had to pull put out all the stops to keep Jane entertained in her room for five days!! We built forts, painted, colored, played games, did craft projects etc etc.

Finally, on Thursday after her fever still hadn't broken I decided I needed to take her to the doctor. He wanted to see if her fever would break that evening since that would mark the fifth day since she had Croup and it was common for the fever to last that long with Croup. He said to not give her any more medicine and see what happened. I did as he instructed and put Jane down for a nap without medicine. After a while she woke up whining. I ran in to check on her to find she had her highest temperature yet, 104.5, and a strange splotchy rash on her stomach and back.

Of course, I freaked out and called the doctor immediately (after giving her Tylenol and Ibuprofen right away). He suggested we have some tests run. Ryan came home early from work and we took Jane to the hospital to have an x-ray, her blood drawn, and a nasal swab done. Naturally, she hated every second of it, cried a lot, and was totally traumatized...so awful! We also, were able to start her on an antibiotic for a nasal infection the doctor suspected she had. It wasn't until a few days later on Saturday that we discovered that she had had H1N1 the whole week.

I felt so bad that Jane had that awful of a sickness all along and was super stressed all over again that Beckham might get sick, too! Thank heaven I kept them separate for a whole five days and at least the doctor prescribed him some Tamiflu that should help as well.

Jane is now doing great and is totally normal despite a lot of yucky nose drainage. Her fever is gone and acts totally normal- yay! And Beckham is totally healthy still but we will have to continue to watch him and hope he doesn't get sick. It has been the worst week ever and an awful way to start the new year. So, our new year officially starts now and will hopefully be much better than it started out. Many new, fun, exciting and kind of sad adventures are in store for us this year.

Happy New Year Everyone!!