July

July was terrible. We have been sick non stop this month. First Naomi, then Mikaela, then Austin caught something, then me. I was hoping the cycle would end, but nope, Naomi decided to pick up the torch and keep the cycle alive. She woke up irritable and complaining about how her feet and hands were itchy. When we took her temperature, she had a fever of 102 and her hands and feet were getting swollen red and hot. She also started getting splotchy all over her face. We were worried it was hand foot and mouth disease, but a not so quick trip to the pediatrician confirmed she likely just had a bad virus that was causing her joints to swell. "Sometimes that just happens". Great. Our pediatrician recommended we use ibuprofen over tylenol since it would help with swelling. It actually seemed to work, after a nap, Naomi woke up completely sweaty, and it seemed like her fever was gone. She was lethargic but more like herself. But after awhile, I noticed her eyes were starting to swell up. I have issues with medicine. I can't take any derivative of aspirin, and actually try to steer clear of any pain releivers other than tylenol because my eyes swell. Naomi however, has never had this problem. Unfortunately it seems like today she might have grown into one of my allergies. And unfortunately, she decided she was going to go on a medicine strike, and refused to take any medicine (after the first two doses this morning). I was able to get her to get a little bit of children's claritin in her, which I think helped with the swelling. After that, we stuck to tylenol, which just didn't seem as effective at getting her fever down, but thankfully her eyes weren't puffing up anymore. It was such a struggle to get her to take her medicine today though, I'm really hoping she sleeps through the night and doesn't need any more medication. She pretty much lay on the couch for the entire day, had nothing to eat but toast in the morning, some french fries from our lunch, which in retrospect was a bad idea since she puked them all up, and 1.5 saltines for dinner.
I'm praying she gets better soon, and also hoping she is the last leg of this vicious sickness relay we've been racing in. With the help of my parents (thank god for them), we managed to keep Mikaela and Naomi separate for most of the day. So hopefully Mikaela wont' catch anything. Tomorrow is August 1st. Hopefully July will go and take our summer sicknesses along with it.