We Are In - Fluenza

So, you know those cute pics below of us at the Red Sox game at Camden Yards last Sunday? All looks well, right? Well, it wasn't. Connor had a positive strep test and had started antibiotics 24 hours before those pics were taken. He seemed fine--as the photos seem to show. But after the game he got tired and cranky again (as he had been on Saturday) and got a pretty high fever on Sunday night. So, Monday morning I took him into the pediatrician for a follow up. It didn't make any sense to me that he'd be on antibiotics for 48 hours and still be so sick. We saw a new doctor in the practice who has the personality of a toe-nail. He basically poo-pooed me and said that we just needed to stick with the Amoxicillin and hang in there. The rest of the day was awful. He was miserable, vomiting, coughing, fever. Then, Monday night again with the awful, drenching fevers. And this is WITH Tylenol. So, by Tuesday morning I was alarmed and actually toyed with taking him to he ER, but called the pediatrician's office instead. I talked to a great nurse who agreed with me that something didn't make sense. So, I brought him back into the office at lunchtime yesterday and we saw a different doctor, one that we love, Dr. Crowley. She actually listened to me and was concerned about the fever (it was almost 102 at that moment!) and Connor's complaint of leg pain on top of everything else. So, she did a rapid flu test.

Now, I should tell you that Connor has developed over the past few months, a deep fear of the flu. All of the news about H1N1 has not escaped his notice and we've had lots of discussions about the flu, how to avoid getting the flu, etc. So, you can imagine his reaction when the doctor walked in and said "Well, we've got a positive flu test." His face literally collapsed on itself, he started to scream and cry and said "Mama! I don't want to die!!!" Ugh. Poor thing. The doctor was so nice and really handled him well. Once I explained to her that Connor was very afraid of "the swine flu" we only conversed using the name H1N1. In the end, she said that she was basically 100% sure that he, in fact, has H1N1 because he was immunized for the regular flu and virtually ALL of the positive influenza A they are seeing this early in the season has been the H1N1 strain. Thank God he didn't understand that part of it. I'd have had to have him tranquilized.

Things really got fun when the doctor told him that she needed to give him a mask to wear out of the office and that he should not touch anything. She put the mask on his face (a rigid one--not one of those cloth surgical things) and it pinched his little red eyes into slits. Which made him cry again. And he was so sad that everyone would be afraid of him in the mask. Which they were. Clearly, word spread quickly in the office because EVERYONE who worked there moved aside as we exited. The girl at the checkout counter literally THREW his sticker at him so she wouldn't come close to him. It was pitiful.

So, he's on Tamiflu for the flu and antibiotics for the concurrent strep. I called his school nurse and she agreed that it is probably H1N1 and that there is at least one other case in his school right now, also with concurrent strep. He'll probably be out of school all week. And it will be a miracle if Bob and I don't get this, too. My only hope is that I have some immunity because my mom is pretty sure that I was immunized during the swine flu outbreak in the 1970s.

I got him a little stuffed green monster yesterday and told him it was the flu virus guy. He liked that. But I could tell that he was conflicted about whether he should snuggle him (he's cute) or beat the living daylights out of him. In the end, he snuggled him. After all, its not easy being feared and hated!