Blood, Sweat, and Tears (in no particular order)

Several nasty bugs visited our house in mid-November. Some people were hit with a stomach thing and some just had a high fever and sore throat.  It started on a Friday with Bristol throwing up in the morning and Bo coming home from school to immediately fall asleep on the couch. Saturday morning, Grier was whiny and had the rosy cheeks like Bo, so despite her inability to verbalize what was wrong, we assumed she had the same thing as Bo. We had to keep a tablet on the kitchen counter, near the medicine box, for keeping track of which kid had Tylenol or Advil at what time, just so we wouldn't overdose anybody.  So, when I had a fever and sore throat starting Saturday evening, I figured I'd start to perk up in about a day, like Bo.

No luck. Sunday night, my fever did break. This is where the sweat referenced in the title comes in. Even with all my experience with the hormonal night sweats that come after delivering babies, I've never woken up as soaked as I did in the middle of the night Sunday. Bill reached over as I was getting up to go nurse Bristol and even he commented on how wet the leg of my pajama pants was. I think I could have wrung those clothes out if I'd tried. Unfortunately, several days later, I could still barely swallow. I made an appointment at a nearby clinic.

The clinic is where the blood and tears happened. Well, the blood was technically before we got there. We were loading up the van and Grier took off out of the garage, promptly tripping and face-planting on the driveway. She scraped up her nose and upper lip pretty good. The tears were caused by the doctor, and no, no one had to get any shots. I had Bristol in the stroller to keep her contained. The way we were arranged in the room, the doctor was trying to pull the little light thingy for looking in my ears and throat over Bristol, so I wouldn't need to get up from the chair I was sitting in. As he stretched it closer to me, the cord snapped and the instrument flew back and smacked Bristol on the forehead. Oh did she cry! I think the doctor might have wanted to too. He felt terrible! And I'm sure he couldn't help but have the word, "lawsuit," run through his head. It was such a freak accident and really Bristol was stunned more than anything. If you check out the picture below, though, you'll see that it did leave a mark on the left side of her forehead.

Personally, I thought the antibiotics for the strep throat were worth it. The girls might disagree.