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Sick, sick, sick

Eleanor is on antibiotics for the third time in 2 months. It started before thanksgiving, when the teacher called on Friday afternoon. It looked like Eleanor had pink eye, so we brought her in to the Dr. and he announced that yes, she did have pink eye and gave us some eye drops. I'm glad the teacher caught it, so we didn't have to go to urgent care on Saturday.

That Sunday, Eleanor complained again of a sore throat. It had been going on for a while, but she was still pretty healthy seeming so we knew it wasn't strep throat. Still, if you even suspect that your kid has strep throat, it is polite to bring her in to the doctor to make sure she doesn't, before you accidentally infect the whole class. The doctor agreed with us, after looking her over. "Probably not, but we'll do a culture, just in case." He came back in a few minutes later saying that the test was positive, and he had never seen it turn positive so fast. Thank goodness for amoxicillin...

This time the teacher called again on Friday afternoon: "Eleanor has been complaining that her ear hurts." This is significant since she hardly even complains, she's pretty hardy. So I went to pick her up, and by the time I got there she was crying, she hurt so much. I gave her some motrin, picked up Amanda and our carpool friend, dropped the friend at home and made an appointment for that afternoon. As we were in the car, Eleanor asked, "Where are we going?" I said we were going to the doctors. "Why?" she asked. I reminded her that her ear had been hurting earlier. "Oh, yeah. I remember." Thank goodness for motrin.

Sure enough, the Dr. looked at the first ear, said "this isn't the one that's hurting, is it?" She looked in the other and said it was full of pus. Back to Target, more amoxicillin (as Eleanor said, "at least I like how it tastes!") and she's on the road to recovery.

I admit to being a little worried, since the winter has barely started. I'm really tired of getting prescriptions filled. Perhaps I should keep the kids separated from all other children for the rest of the winter. Or maybe not.

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