Happy New Year! And it’s a big birthday week for us…too bad we all have the plague!
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We started off the week with church and Holden’s 7th birthday! We decided to take his birthday cake to church with us so we could sing to him and share some cake after services. It was really nice! Here’s a video of the big moment:
It’s too bad he was sick for his birthday. I’m hoping he gets better soon, but it’s been a week already, and I’m not seeing a lot of improvement. Poor baby! I can hardly believe he’s already 7. He’s getting to be such a big boy!
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So this week, the kids finally passed the plague on to me. I took them all out to lunch with me at Moe’s on Monday to share my free birthday entree, and we all got separate straws and shared a drink. Big mistake! By the next day, I knew I was sick, too. My throat was SOOO sore, and it was getting worse by the minute! So by the time my birthday rolled around on New Year’s Day, I was downright miserable! Steve and I slipped out for my free birthday breakfast at Denny’s, and then I came home and went to bed for pretty much the rest of the day! Too bad. I had picked up some fancy hors d’oeuvres that we could graze on, as we traditionally do, so I came down later in the day to have a little bit to eat, but mostly, I had a hard time even swallowing my own spit!
But it was yummy anyway. We had beef tenderloin wrapped in bacon, cheddar cheese cubes, buffalo chicken meatballs, and fresh melon spears. Yum! Then we brought out my favorite Uncle Harry’s ice cream cake…the best part of my birthday!
So I’ll admit it…I’m 43!
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Steve also contracted this horrible plague, though not as badly as me and the boys had it…more like how Haylee had it. But it was just awful that we all spent our entire 2-week holiday break so ill. We didn’t get to do much of any of the activities we’d planned to do while we were all off together. It’s too bad. The big dilemma was what to do about our being sick. Our private insurance that was expiring on 12-31 did not cover prescriptions until we were out $1,500 out of pocket, and sick visits were $30. Urgent care centers and emergency rooms were not covered until we’d met a $5,000 deductible per person. And with so much of the community sick, I had a feeling we weren’t going to get a regular doctor’s appointment. So we all pushed through until the end of the week to wait for our new insurance to kick in. My inability to swallow by Friday made it mandatory that I go somewhere to be seen!
As I suspected, I could not get in to see any of the doctors in the practice, so they sent me over to the urgent care side. I sat and waited for a total of 4 hours before I got in there! I had a rapid flu test and a strep throat culture, and both were negative. I found out I had a throat infection and fluid in my my left middle ear, and my right ear was completely blocked with wax, so they couldn’t even see my middle ear! That’s the one that was hurting. So with a throat and ear infection, I was given 10 days of amoxicillin and was told to take Mucinex D once a day along with it. I’d spent 2 hours on the phone with the plan administrator and Anthem trying to get our i.d. # before I went to the doctor, but they said they weren’t going to be assigning one until Monday. So fortunately, I was able to get the doctor to let me make a $30 co-payment and wait to hear from me on Monday about details of the new insurance with Anthem Healthkeepers. I just paid for my RX outright, but it was cheap anyway.
Then on Saturday, I signed financial waivers at the pediatrician’s office and was able to get both of the boys seen with a $30 co-payment each. They also agreed to wait until Monday for more information, thankfully. The boys turned out to have a sinus/respiratory infection. The pediatrician said that most likely, the whole thing started out as a virus of some kind for all of us, and then the congestion settled in various places on each of us and caused a bacterial infection. That made perfect sense. The boys got a 5-day regimen of super-powerful azithromycin. They took a double dose the first day and had to take a single dose on each of the next four days. We’re looking forward to seeing the light at the end of this tunnel of illness!
For the first time in probably a decade, we all knew we were going to have to miss church. The other members are all elderly, and one has rather fragile health at this time, so we thought it best to notify the congregation that we’d be sitting out services this weekend. And we know we have to get ourselves rested and ready to return to work and school on Monday morning.
How about you? Did your family make it through the holidays without illness? A local news article said that Hampton Roads is the 5th sickest city in the country right now for reported colds and flu. I hardly know anyone who hasn’t been ill recently. If you made it through the holidays unscathed, you’re really lucky!
Until next week…
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