Tag: strep

Covid and the New School Year

I just read an article on SLATE titled, “I Have No Idea What I’m OK Letting My Kids Do During Covid Anymore” by Allison Benedikt. I was nodding and smiling the whole time I read it, cause yep, I’m in the same place. 

We are in the South. Our schools are not requiring masks, and our governor just made a rule that parents can opt-out of any mask mandates. The Superintendent of our school district made an announcement that our schools can’t offer virtual options when we have absences due to Covid. In a high school meeting we were informed that absences are a big problem and we need to have signed notes any time our kids are absent and make it a big priority to have as few absences as possible. Ok. Great message when you also don’t want kids to come to school if they have any symptoms at all. Our homeschooling co-op has a rule that if ANYONE in the family is sick, don’t come. Which is a pain in the butt when you have a big family, but it’s very effective at keeping any possibility of germs from showing up. But, public schools do not have that policy. 

So, my kids went to school the first week. Day three, one child came home and was not feeling well. By evening she had a fever. She ended up having strep throat and then three days later also came down with symptoms of the hand foot and mouth virus. Both of those are pretty common childhood illnesses that get passed around all the time. But, I want to point out something. Last school year my kids went to public school and wore masks. We did not get sick. The entire year. It was bizarre. No strep. No colds. No stomach bugs. And no covid. 

I talked to the nurse practitioner who saw my sick kids (cause yes, the strep and other virus both spread to all the other little kids). I asked her what she thought about masks at school and the idea that kids DO need to be exposed to childhood viruses so they can build their immune system. She hemmed and hawed. Wouldn’t commit to any stance (which is understandable, it’s a highly charged subject). 

I had one child who did not get sick. It was time to send kids to school, everyone from the elementary school was staying home except her. She had no symptoms. According to public school policy, I should send her to school. But, she COULD get sick. It was very possible that I would send her to school and then by the afternoon she could have a fever. What do you do? So, I gave her a mask and told her to wear it. No, it doesn’t block everything, but it does block some.  Hopefully it would make her less contagious. Well, when I picked her up at the end of the day, she was not wearing her mask. Said it was hot. Got annoying. Fortunately, she did not end up getting sick, but my thoughts of maybe sending my kids to school with masks kind of fell flat. Without it being a rule and someone enforcing it, there is no way they are going to keep them on. I also was talking to a therapist who works at the school and she said the kids who were showing up with masks were getting teased about it. 

I think the general attitude in our state is that Covid is a virus. It’s unavoidable. Like colds and the flu. Vaccines are available, but like flu shots, are going to be very limited in what they can do in the longterm, simply because covid is a constantly mutating virus. And so, we are going about the business of doing normal life with Covid. And it’s messy. No one knows what the rules are. No one knows who to listen to. The hospitals are filling up. When my father got sick with Covid, he ended up getting transferred to an out-of-state hospital. 

And us parents are standing on the sidelines, scratching our heads, hoping that we are making the right choices for our kids. But not sure. 

Observations on SLOWING THE SPREAD

We have had an interesting couple days. On Sunday morning I had three children complain of sore throats. Since then I have rode the roller-coaster of wondering whether they could possibly have gotten THE VIRUS. Could we be CONTAGIOUS? My husband is still working and we wondered what we should do about him going to work if there was a possibility we were actually SICK. 

 

I spoke to the nurse for our insurance’s call line. She said there was no way of knowing whether we had strep, flu, covid-19 or some other virus. We waited 24hrs. My husband took a day off work. In that time one kid got completely better, another kid developed a cough to go with her sore throat and the other had a fever to go with her sore throat. I looked on our county’s Health Department Website and it said if you suspect you are sick, call your doctor.  I called our Pediatrician’s office and spoke to the nurse. Yes, she said, those could be possible early signs of the covid-19, but all they could do at their office was rule out flu and strep. If I wanted, I could go visit a walk-in clinic to rule out strep and flu instead of visiting my pediatrician who is located at UT hospital. I asked her what she thought about my husband going to work if we didn’t know what our kids had. She had no answer. I asked if there was any protocol we were supposed to follow. She said, if you are sick stay home. But as far as other family members who are working? Well, that’s your own call. 

 

I went back to the Health Department’s Website. They had a phone number you could call. I called and they said that they were looking specifically for fever and cough or fever and shortness of breath. Wheww. We didn’t have that specific combination. All was well. 

 

Then later that day I asked my daughter how she was doing and she said she was feeling achy all over and her chest was tight and she needed to use her inhaler. Great. Now we had more symptoms and they were the ones the Health Department had said they were looking for. (The other daughter’s symptoms had turned into something that was obviously allergies.)

 

Now it was Tuesday morning. My husband took another day off work. I had checked on my daughter several times during the night, taking her temperature, but I realized that the thermometer that I had bought at the store (the very last thermometer in the store) was not working. It consistently was saying that each person I checked had a temperature of 96 degrees. Good grief. 

 

I called the Health Department number and told them my daughter’s symptoms and her history with asthma. The lady on the phone said we should probably get tested. She asked what insurance we had (State Health Insurance) and she gave me the name of three walk-in clinics we could visit and their phone number. I called each walk-in clinic and all three said they did not accept our state insurance. One of them said that my pediatrician could probably give me a referral to a place that could test. So, I hung up and called my pediatrician again. I spoke to the receptionist who makes appointments and she said I had to talk to the nurse to schedule sick appointments and sent me to a voicemail where I had to listen to a 5 minute long message before I could leave my information. 

 

We finally got an appointment scheduled, drove to the hospital, went through a checkpoint where my daughter was handed a face mask and we were given name tags to show we had been screened. We walked through the nearly empty halls to our Pediatrician’s office and got checked in, being very careful to touch NOTHING. After the nurse had collected the samples she needed to test for flu and strep, I talked to the Nurse Practitioner. She explained that they could test for covid-19 but it would take 14 days to get the test results back and our entire family would need to self-isolate while we waited for those test results. It was up to me, did I want to get her tested? Yikes. We sat and stared at each other. What a crazy predicament. She knew it was crazy. I knew it was crazy.

 

My question is, how on earth are we supposed to be containing the spread of this virus when we apparently have so little tools to do so? When you read about the steps they took in Wuhan, China to stamp out the spread, and then compare it to what we are doing, we have no right to be amazed that our numbers have already exceeded those of China. Here in the US, the average citizen isn’t sure how to proceed if they get sick, and there doesn’t seem to be any organized system to get answers. If you are prepared to get on the phone and track down answers, you will eventually find out what you need. But there are a lot of people who would struggle to do that. People who don’t have internet access to look up the info they need, or don’t have phone service, or don’t have a personal doctor they can call. These aren’t made up people. I know them personally. 

 

And then, when you throw money into the equation: you can get tested and automatically miss two weeks of work, or you can just hope that you don’t actually have the virus and keep working…It is not an easy decision to make. And for some people, that decision will mean the difference between having food to eat, keeping phone service, starting the long downhill slide into eviction…There is very little motivation to get tested or self-isolate. 

 

The good news is that my daughter has Strep Throat. For which we are rejoicing. 🙂 I can treat that. My husband can go to work without worrying about spreading it around. I know how to deal with strep. (I do have to ask, how on earth did a kid, who has only seen four people besides her family in the past month, get strep?) 

 

I have to admit though, I’m not feeling a lot of confidence in our ability to slow the spread. 

I Need an “I Don’t Care” Day.

It’s been a long week. We’ve got flu, strep, a ruptured ear drum, rsv, pneumonia, repeating ear infection, with ten out of eleven children sick. My husband just lost the battle this morning so that leaves me and one of my boys defying the odds. 

 

We have had a lot of support: people bringing meals, food, essential oils, homeopathic remedies, groceries, paper products…lots of people praying. I have felt very surrounded by my community. For that I am thankful. And even though the kids have been sick, only two of them have been bedridden. The three year old who has pneumonia, strep, and rsv is running around the house like everything is normal, the only difference being that when he runs too fast, he suddenly can’t breathe and then I have to give him albuterol. And for anyone who wants to criticize, I haven’t figured out how to get a three year old to stay in bed for his own good when he’s feeling full of energy. As I write now though, in the middle of the afternoon, he is conked out asleep on my bed, so I continue to trust that he will sleep when he needs it. 

 

It’s my daughter’s birthday today. Seven years old. I’ve been trying to keep the kids off sugar this week as we have been trying to recover from sickness, but today we had marshmallow cereal for breakfast cause I let my kids choose what they want to eat for their special days. (Within reason!) We’ll have cake tonight. And spaghetti, as requested. 

 

Right now, I am just sitting in my chair not wanting to move. My house is a mess. Not because it’s been a mess for a long time. It was clean last night. But you know…kids. So, once again it is a mess. I need to keep doing laundry, and fold all the dry stuff. I need to run to the store to get the birthday cake which I forgot on my run to the store last night. I need to wash dishes. I’ve got a list of important documents I’ve got to find in all my paperwork. I need to contact my piano students and let them know that, once again, I’m going to miss their lessons on Monday due to sickness in my home, and I hate that and it’s making me feel guilty. I’ve got some emails to teachers that I need to write. I need to help the one child who was sick all week, come up with a plan for catching up with her school work. 

 

Yesterday I was humming a little ditty to the bible verse, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Phillipians 4:13. I had the verse on repeat and literally was muttering it under my breath the whole day. And it was a crazy busy day. And I did all the things. And Christ gave me strength.

 

But today. Today I’m tired. I still believe I can do all things, but honestly I don’t want to right now. I just want to rest. I just want to sit in my chair with a book, be available if needed, but not engaged. 

 

Today is the traditional Sabbath day. I have always been a bit puzzled as to how a mom is supposed to have a traditional Sabbath day, as described in the Old Testament. People still have to be fed. Diapers still have to be changed. Kids still have to parented. The trash is still going to overflow in the trash can and need a new bag. I can see adults pressing the pause button for the day, I just don’t see how you do it with children. 

I have friends who observe the Sabbath, I guess I need to ask them how they do it. While I don’t particularly feel the need to have a traditional Sabbath day, I would really like a day of rest. For me, that rest would look like me taking one day where I just didn’t care. I don’t care if the dishes aren’t caught up. I don’t care that someone spilled on the kitchen floor and never cleaned it up. I don’t care that the birthday girl left a large craft project on the floor of the living room. I don’t care that the kids didn’t clean their bedrooms today. I don’t care if the laundry doesn’t get folded today. I don’t care if we watch more tv than we should. 

 

Yeah. I just need an I don’t care day. 

 

So, I’m going to post this blog, go buy a birthday cake (this sounds like work, but buying a cake instead of baking a cake, is a form of “I don’t care”), turn on the tv for the kids, pull out my book and sit by the fire for the rest of the day. Until it’s time to make the spaghetti. And give everyone their medicine. And get everyone to bed on time. Cause I’m a mom, and my rebellion can only go so far.