Scarlet Fever

we can add another illness to the baby book. Cooper had Scarlet Fever last week. After a fantastic long weekend of playing and general happiness we noticed a rash on Cooper's belly. It didn't seem to be bothering him at all so we just chalked it up to rolling around in the grass or something. Just to be sure we made him a last minute appointment at the doctor's. The next morning the rash looked better - less raised and red - so we took him to school and canceled the appointment. A couple hours later the school called. We needed to come pick up Cooper. He's not allowed back in his classroom until we have a note from the doctor explaining the rash. It got a little sticky since Chandler and I both had pretty busy days and no real options. I had to leave in the middle of a big meeting/workshop to go get him. I took him to the doctor and to everyone's surprise the rash was from the streptococcus virus (also causing strep throat). He walked away with another 10 days of antibiotics since his ear infection hasn't gone away yet.
The good news is that he never acted sick or had a fever. The doctor even remarked that she didn't think it would be strep since he's not acting sick at all. He only once or twice complained that his ear hurt. I'm ready for spring to spring and these germs to be gone.

sickies

The boys have been pretty sick for the past 2 weeks. coughs, sniffles, sore throats, stuffed noses - the works. Cash seemed to be having the worst of it with his coughing so we took them both to urgent care the other night. It was crowded and everyone in there was sicker than the last person. The doctor was very nice and looked at the boys. He diagnosed Cash with bronchitis and pink eye and Cooper with pink eye and a cold. He loaded us up with very expensive prescriptions and sent us on our way. The next couple nights were the worst. Cash was up all night long and his coughing was constant. He wasn't getting any better and Cooper started coughing more so we made an appointment to go see their regular doctor. She took one look at Cash - and Chandler (who is apparently the sickest of all of us) - and said, "you guys are sick and you look like you have the flu." We told her about our urgent care experience and she told us that it was all wrong. The diagnosis was wrong and the medicine and dosing was wrong (too little).
Cash had a low oxygen level so he had to get a breathing treatment to break up the croup. He didn't like it at first but after we convinced him that it was just like Darth Vader (dark vader) he was ok with it. Then he had to get a shot in the leg - the medicine was the same as what was in the breathing treatment but was a little longer lasting. He also had a raging ear infection (which the urgent care doctor said he didn't have) so he got antibiotics for that. And he doesn't have pink eye - the gunk and swelling is just from the sinus pressure so no more eye drops for the boys (they are very pleased). Cash was getting some relief immediately as evidenced by the nap he took in the car on the way home - he hasn't slept more than a few hours in a row since he started coughing.
We set both boys up with Vaporizors at home and while there was still a lot of coughing going on last night it sounded different and we had a "full" night's sleep.