Strep

Cameron complained that he had a sore throat on Monday. I really wanted him to go to school, but I was a little nervous that I'd get a call from the school half way through the day that I had to pick him up…or at least start calling around to find somebody who could pick him up for me. So, I let him stay home. Since there have been 2 daycare kids that were out with strep in the past few weeks, I decided that I would run him to urgent care after daycare to make sure he didn't have it. I also figured if I had was going to take him in, I might as well have them swab the other kids, too. I had no desire to run a different child to the doctor every day this week.

The nurse that was working urgent care last night is actually the nurse at the clinic here in town, so she completely understood why I wanted all of the kids checked out, whether they had symptoms or not. The doctor, however, didn't seem to get it. No matter how many times that I explained to him that strep had been around the daycare, and since I had one child with a sore throat, I wanted them all checked because I have 5 kids, a very full daycare, and a husband with a full time job which makes getting to the doctor for simple things like strep tests a little difficult. Why does he even care how many I want swabbed….the nurses do all of that part anyway! And I was not asking for antibiotics if they weren't needed; I just wanted to make sure it wasn't needed.

So, for each of the kids, he kept asking if they were running a fever, and when I said no, he kept saying that usually if they have strep they would also have a fever. When he got to Baylee, he did at least discover that she had an ear infection, so at least the trip wouldn't be a total waste, regardless of how the strep tests turned out. Now, I admit, Amata had absolutely no symptoms and the doctor made sure to point out to me that she seemed to be perfectly healthy, and he didn't consider her a risk for strep at all. At least Baylee & Caleb had a little cough & runny nose. And the rapid tests for all of them did come back negative.

So, as I am expecting my mother of the year trophy to arrive in the mail any day now, I made Cameron go to school Tuesday even though he said his stomach hurt a little…I said the doctor said he wasn't contagious so there was no reason for him to stay home.

And then, about an hour after school started, the clinic called to let me know that a couple of the strep cultures did turn positive over night. Cameron's was one, which didn't surprise me, but Amata's was the other one! While I would have preferred to not have strep around here, it does make me feel a little bit vindicated, since the one test the doctor thought was a complete waste actually turned out to be strep. They were nice enough to also give us a prescription for Caleb, too, since chances are pretty high that if Cameron & Amata have it, he'd probably get it in the end. Then, today, the clinic called again to say that Baylee's culture turned positive…I didn't know they kept checking them for more than the one day. Luckily, since she had the ear infection she was already on antibiotics, so she shouldn't be contagious anymore, either.

Hopefully, we will have some happier campers here in the next day or so, once those antibiotics start to do their job!