Sinusitis

Cousin Kelly wins the prize for diagnosing my sinus infection.  Let's see what Kelly wins....

***opens envelope***

***builds suspense***

***cue excited music!***

Internet glory.  Sorry kiddo, this blog's budget for fabulous prizes is weak.

I got an antibiotic that I've never heard of, and a refill of my zoloft.  "You're ok on 25 mg?" the doctor asked.  "Yeah, it's enough to keep me from yelling at people on the phone," I said.  (Longtime readers will remember that I almost had to find a new doctor because I got cranky with his nurse over Jack's reflux-that-isn't thing.  Oops.)

Jack was kind of magical - he fell asleep in the car on the way to the doctor's office, and I somehow managed to ninja him into the stroller without waking him up (which is decidedly more difficult when they've outgrown the bucket seat).  He slept through the entire appointment.  That kid deserves an award too.  (Internet glory all around!)

Monica (who actually did gag when reading about my coffee selection, then laughed when I called it!) watched Claire for me and picked Mary Grace up from school so that I could head to the doctor's without the whole brood.  Then I picked up lunch and headed back to her house afterwards.  When I got there, I saw this:

Eeyore.

It actually got worse after I took this, before it got better when we pumped her full of Benadryl.  Poor kid!  This is the second time that she's swollen up like this at Monica's house.  They don't have pets, either. They do have an older house (1930s) and a lot of flowering trees that are in bloom, so she must be allergic to one of those.  It was so gross - the white of her eye looked like wrinkly yellowish Jello.  I asked my dad, later, if it could rupture, and he said no, so that was comforting.  I also made sure that she knew to come to me if she had trouble breathing.  Gosh, it's chill being a mom of 3.  If this had happened back when she was my only kid I would have SPAZZED and taken her straight to the ER.

We gave her a whole 25 mg Benadryl, too.  It's a wonder she didn't pass out.  I gave her more at bedtime because it hadn't gone away entirely.  Poor kid.  What's weird is that it doesn't happen every time we go to Monica's house.  Kelly?  What do you think?

My brother had asthma growing up, and occasionally had to go to the ER because he had asthma attacks during the night, and I remember one time someone used the phrase, "His eyes were the size of golf balls," and for some reason that mental image stuck with me - maybe I was in that literal phase where kids don't understand metaphors at all, so if you say "skeleton in the closet," they start looking for actual skeletons in actual closets (I only bring that example up because I totally did that, too).  Anyway, that mental image came racing back today when I saw MG.  I hope she doesn't end up with asthma, that would suck.

In other news, we had Claire's parent-teacher conference today, and she's ready for kindergarten.  She has learned so much in the last year.  It's really neat to see the testing laid out in front of you like that, showing where she was when she came in and how far she has come.  They even had a copy of her progress report from last year to compare to this year.  It's just awesome how fast they learn at this age.  She's getting to be so big.  All of the pictures she draws of girls have the hair on just one side of her head, like a side ponytail.  I guess she has seen Tangled too many times.  Too funny.  Both of the girls' school journals feature a lot about their siblings and a lot about Star Wars.

Erin's kiddo caught the plague, even though we were well for a full 48 hours before they came over on Tuesday.  I think the flu is coming from inside the house.  Luckily Polly came today and cleaned everything, so it should be safe (unless Polly gets it, too, then all bets are off).  The neighbors down the street also have it.  Again, 48 hours passed between our last symptoms and them coming over.  This thing is awful.  I feel like Typhoid Mary.  And the mom down the street is 32 weeks pregnant.  I told her I would come down and help if she needed anything.  Hope she'll take me up on it if things get bad down there.

Let's see - Dad, Monica's 5 family members, Kathryn and Ian, Erin's daughter (so far), and the two girls down the street - we've spread this mess to 11 people so far.  Gah!  If it were any more virulent, you'd be able to catch it just reading about it.