Cooties

The cooties have been working the way around the Hendey household. Adam started things off last Friday, staying home from school with a fever and a sore throat. To tell you the truth, when I decided to let him stay home on Friday it was mostly out of concern for his teacher who is 8+ months pregnant. Turns out, he really was sick though...

Mom woke up the next day with that tell-tale pre-sore throat feeling. I was out of commission Sunday and Monday, operating under a nyquil induced haze. I feel great today for the first time since Saturday.

Yesterday, it hit Greg. He does not have the same luxury Adam or I do and still had to go in and work his overnight shift in the Emergency Department last night. What is the wisdom of a sick doctor going in to take care of patients (not to mention a sleep deprived, sick doctor!)? After twenty plus years of being married to him, I still can't get a good explanation out of my husband regarding the fact that ER doctors can never call in sick to work. He is upstairs in bed now - hopefully he will stay there until he starts feeling better.

Eric, the last holdout, woke up this morning running a fever and complaining of a sore throat. He's stubborn, however, and didn't want to miss his last tennis match which will be played later this afternoon or the last biology class before a big test tomorrow. So he dragged himself from bed, took a long, hot shower, and marched off to high school. He's learned the grown up lesson that sometimes you have to work through illness - I think that's pretty sad. Our high school kids have so much pressure on them that the prospect of missing a day of school is quite stressful.

The good news about this particular strain of cooties is that it seems to run its course in three days, so I'm hoping my brood will be well again by the end of the weekend. Being sick, even just a little bit, makes me realized how incredibly blessed we are by the gift of health.