"Postcards from The Edge of Sick-Land"...or "Love In The Time of Ear Infections"?

As a warning this may seem slightly in-cohesive and babbly, whiney and dramatic. I hold lack of sleep, cold medication, and my own craziness responsible. Read at your own risk. And there are no pictures because I'm hoping that my memory will completely erase how sucky the past couple days have been. Mmmthanks.

What day is it? Still 2013?...are you sure...because it feels like we've been sick for YEARS! Unfortunately the last two weeks have been a big blur of caring for sick children or being sick myself that there no real difference between day or night, Sunday or Wednesday. Its all grey people...its all...grey.

Remember I whined last week that my kids had been sick for over a week? Well, when the first kid made a recovery back to normal after a small eternity of 5 days, I thought we'd just tough it out and we'd all get better. But around and around the sickness carousel we continued to go. And with five kids its a hellova long ride.

Luke's coughing. Now he's better. Gemma's got a fever. Dom's coughing. Luke's absolutely miserable. Dom's better. Gemma's coughing. Gemma's better. Nora's sick. Cue holding a sick and grumpy infant all day and night. Everyone's coughing. Up all night. Everyone's got a fever. Everyone's sorta better?

Friday the husband comes home early sick, fevery, aching. But the kids seem better? Oh wait colossal Luke meltdown again.

Then I got all crazy and decided to go to the local small town parade with the three oldest on Saturday morning, my first time out of the house in a week!

I got home and had a total relapse of the plague I thought I was done with a week before! Perfect. I couldn't even get out of bed to go to Mass.

Sunday-we must be improving right?? Gemma can barely talk. Dom is better? Luke has a fever still. By the end of the day I can hardly stand upright and Gemma's eyes are swollen and oozing something green.

That's it. I give up. Everyone to the doctor!

Usually I'm that woman who is totally anti-antibiotics. You know, tough it out kid have a vitamin C. And honestly I think only one of my kids has ever been on antibiotics before - once. I'm not really sure what to credit this to...but I think its mostly due to never leaving the house and having few friends.

But Monday morning I JUST WANTED ALL THE DRUGS!! Seriously, I'd bathe my children in antibiotics at this point. The communal misery is too great! I can't remember what sleep is!

Taking care of a sick infant AND sick toddlers is almost impossible. Taking care of a sick infant is a 24 job that requires all your attention. Taking care of sick toddlers requires all your patience, kindness, compassion, empathy, saintly-ness, supernatural graces, alcohol, you have. But doing both? Not cool. Even when I had my mom and husband to help. I was crying almost on an hourly basis. This is no deadly disease, I know. Its nothing compared to what really sick children and their parents go through, but I was a weepy mess lost in the pits of despair with no hope of recovery.

Did I mention Monday was a stat holiday?

I hate being one of those people who suck up public health care dollars aplenty by utilizing the emergency room unnecessarily, but I was literally at the end of my rope. So yes emergency room nurse, it was an emergency. You try taking care of 5 sick kids for days on end with no sleep and then we'll talk about what qualifies as an emergency shall we?! 12 hours shifts....puh-leeezze. Also; do you know how much work it is to pack up kids to take them to the doctor? Or how convenient it was that my husband was home to help me take them? So yes, every one of my kids was going to see the doctor that trip, and myself, and my husband. Yes, nurse who did the paperwork...we must be the biggest family you've ever seen...really?? I only have 5! And do I always sorta laugh when they ask me if I gave birth to all of them?...sorta...I mean some days I don't believe it either. And no, no twins...but in retrospect that 2 for 1 pregnancy idea would have been super handy.

As an aside our super small town hospital emergency room is hardly ever busy, so we didn't have to way, and there was no one with a broken limb stuck in line behind us or anything. We were practically giving them something to do on their holiday shift!

So everyone happily got diagnosed with some sort of infection. Luke, a really bad ear infection. Dom, a slight ear infection. Max, an eye infection. Gemma, chest infection. I, with strep throat! Nora checked out fine which made me feel better because I was worried she'd go downhill like the kids did on the weekend, she's got a small cough, runny nose, but the fever is gone even though she still is acting pretty sick. She never leaves my arms or the swing and the humidifier.

I was relieved everyone was sick enough to warrant prescriptions so the nurse and her looks at me as though I was being a crazy, hypochondriacal, tax-dollar-wasting, helicopter, mom were not justified. I was happy that something could cure us and possibly end the years of suffering. Its Wednesday now. The kids are mostly better, last night no one woke up in a coughing fit! Nora only woke up twice! I went to bed at 9, have been taking giant doses of penicillin and am almost starting to feel better. At this rate normal life might happen within a week or two!