A Plague On Our Only House

I'd like to say both of our houses... but we only have the one.

This one started on Wednesday afternoon.  I got a call from daycare at about 3:40pm to let me know that Penny had a temperature of 100.4°.  I asked what that meant, because the daycare director never told me that I needed to come get her.  She said that, as long as the temperature was under 101°, Penny would be able to stay.  I got off the phone with her and began the eighty minutes of hoping to not get another call.  It worked out and when I got to daycare after work, Penny was a little less than her normal cheerful self, but that also happens when she's really tired.  Before bed, I gave her a dose of Children's Tylenol and called it a night.  When we got up on Thursday morning, I fully expected to find two kids with temperatures of about 102°.  Luckily, hers had dropped into the 99s and his was completely normal.

The dreaded phone call came at noon.  Penny was great, but Leonard had thrown up and had a temperature of 102°, which I later found out was taken after he threw up.  But whatever... he had to leave either way.  I called the doctor on the way to get them and found out that the appointments for the afternoon were all booked, but I was welcome to bring them to the walk-in clinic that would be open until 7pm.  On that phone call, I learned that the current waiting time was about two hours.  Better than the emergency room (even though it wasn't an emergency), but less than ideal all the same.  When we got to the office, about a 45 minute venture, including coming home for their insurance and medical stuff, it was up to a three hour wait.  Luckily, she can sit still and he was still very groggy from being woken from his nap.  We ended up waiting about an hour and a half, which considering what we were told, wasn't bad at all.  As long as it wasn't the flu, we were going to call any diagnosis a win for our side.

It turns out, after the doctor examined both of them, that she suspected strep for Penny and strep with the added bonus of an ear infection for Leonard.  They were both given prescriptions to be filled, with his being the stronger of the two, since he had more ailments that needed curing.