Tamiflu All Around!

Last week, the flu landed at our house. Yep, the flu. The one we all got shots for this past fall. I could see the little wheels turning in Jackson’s head when the doctor announced Friday morning “He has the flu”…

But I got that shot! You told me I wouldn’t get sick!

I’m sure that’s what he was thinking. I didn’t want to draw attention to that though, so I didn’t ask him. 😉

Let me back up to last Tuesday.

Tuesday was yet another snow day here in Kansas City. We were getting dumped on with snow, and enough of it that even Nick was working from home. Late that afternoon Jackson said his head hurt, and it hurt around his eyes. He’d seemed a little stuffy that day, but nothing huge. He has been prone to sinus infections though, so it concerned me. A couple of hours later he complained he was cold, but his face was on fire. Took his temp and found it to be 102. Bummer.

Wednesday (yet another snow day for the kids) I took him to see the doctor. He didn’t have all of the symptoms of the flu, or strep so she didn’t do either test, and his face didn’t feel puffy enough to indicate a sinus infection yet. So we got the “let’s give it a couple of days” line, and were told to call her on Friday if he wasn’t improving.

On Thursday Jackson stopped walking.

Yep, you read that right. He claimed his legs hurt, so he would crawl all over the house, or ask to be carried. Nick and I thought he was just being a silly 5 year old at first, but then he continued it the rest of the day. The few times I did see him stand up and try to walk, he looked really uncomfortable (and slightly silly). His fever was continuing to hang in there too, bouncing between 101 and 103, and he had his pathetic sick face on.

Late Thursday night, I thought to myself “I wonder if some kids get those flu aches in their legs primarily. I’m going to Google it to see.” Bad idea. Always a bad idea.

So I typed in “kids with fever and leg pain”, and do you know what word I saw first? Leukemia.

I quickly closed the browser and turned off the computer, but you can’t un-see something like that.

Guess who didn’t sleep so well Thursday night? Yep. Between thoughts of that and meningitis, and a variety of other worst case scenarios I was dreaming up, I did a lot of tear-fighting and a whole lot of tossing and turning.

At 7:01am, I called the doctor’s office to get Jackson on the schedule. The scheduler set me up with the first available appointment (9:20am), and I asked her to please have the doctor or nurse call me before then if this was serious enough to just by-pass them and take Jackson straight to the children’s hospital.  They never called, so we headed to his scheduled appointment. They did the flu and strep tests first, and we waited.

I never, ever thought I would be so relieved to hear “He has the flu”. Ever. While the flu is miserable, and can be quite serious especially in small children, it’s a far cry from all the places my mind had been going the previous 12 hours.

By Friday morning, Jackson was past the Tamiflu window (has to be started within 48 hours of the first symptom), but the rest of us could go on it to help keep us healthy, or at the very least, lessen the severity if we caught it anyway.

It took some work to find Tamiflu for all of us, and it meant picking up the adult doses at one pharmacy and the doses for Ty, Chase & Lily at a different one. And that Tamiflu ain’t cheap (yep, I just used “ain’t”)! Nick and I are thinking it was well worth the cost and hassle though – here we are on Monday morning and all still feeling fine! Woohoo!

An even bigger “Woohoo” is Jackson is feeling better! He started walking a bit on Saturday morning, and yesterday his temps were practically normal again. Not too mention, he was feeling well enough to harass his brothers. He still tires out easily, but that’s to be expected for another week at least. I think he’s pretty pumped about being able to go back to school tomorrow – between the snow days and his sick days, it’s been 2 weeks since he last went!