My second reason for not blogging lately......sick children.
I didn't even know what shigella was until here very recently. I could have lived the rest of my life without knowing what it was. For those of you that don't know, shigella is a bacterium that causes food poisoning and diarrheal illness and can last for several days. My poor Little Bit got it!
This sweet little face was absolutely pitiful for 5 days straight. There was no eating or sleeping for either one of us for those 5 days. It was a mess. It actually all started the day we surprised the girls at school. Little Bit wasn't feeling all that great, but she was active and it just seemed to be a little bug. By that evening we knew we were dealing with something completely different.
The poor child was running to the potty every 20 to 30 minutes. Being only 5, she's still quite the mommy's girl and insisted I tag along to comfort her. Looking back at it now, I'm thankful she was so persistent because I may not have noticed the blood in her stool. We had never dealt with this before so of course I called the doctor who told me to come in asap.
After 3 hours at the doctor's office we were finally on our way back home. The shigella was not confirmed at this point, but we were pretty sure that's what it was. All we could do was wait it out and wait for the doctor to call in an antibiotic (which he couldn't do until it was confirmed).
It just so happens this was the week of Thanksgiving and the first week P was home. It was not the best timing for sure. We all missed Thanksgiving due to the fact Little Bit was very contagious and we didn't want to risk infecting everyone else. Thankfully the rest of us managed to stay clear.....well of the shigella bacteria anyway!
Yes, the rest of us managed to stay clear of the shigella, but bless her heart Miss Priss somehow ended up with the Chicken Pox (even though she had the vaccination) the very next week. Poor thing couldn't go to school for the whole next week. She didn't seem to mind too much. Thankfully it was nothing like Little Bit's mishap. Miss Priss didn't feel bad, she just had bumps all over her. Oh and that annoying little itch.
Needless to say, Thanksgiving was very interesting for us this year. Daddy came home, Little Bit suffered with shigella, Miss Priss itched with chicken pox and Mommy just ran from one end to the other trying to keep it all together. Nice way to throw Daddy right back into our crazy lives! We are thankful it is all behind us now and that Christmas was not quite as eventful!
P.S. Turns out there were at least 6 other confirmed cases of shigella at the elementary school. Rumor has it when digging down to replace some water lines in downtown, the workers dug too deep and hit a sewer line. Some of the sewage got into the water and that's how the shigella started. The school even closed for a day to have the building cleaned by a professional service. Crazy stuff I tell ya! Hopefully it is all behind us and the rest of the year will be much calmer!
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