Sickie

I was going to post photos of our Thanksgiving feast. Maybe I still will, but it just takes so long.

Shawn is finally getting better after being very, very sick. Oddly, he had no fever, so I guess it wasn't the flu. I'm pretty sure it was at least bronchitis. He won't go to the doctor because he doesn't like what antibiotics do to his stomach, but the second I let up on pushing teas and other fluids and rubbing him down with therapeutic essential oils, he gets bad again (as in, this morning). I told him that if he needs to go to the doctor he'd better get there before the end of the month, because since Laura's concussion maxed us out, we've had full coverage this year. As of January 1, 2010, such coverage will be over forever. As in, the new plan never maxes out. Well, I guess it does after you've spent $7,200 out of pocket. In one year. Which could conceivably happen, but I pray it never does.

So that's Shawn.

DJ is also sick. I took him to the doctor yesterday for a strep culture, which sadly was negative, meaning that he has the flu (he has had a fever). So he is missing school, always a stressful thing. Too bad we couldn't put him on an antibiotic and zap it.

The toughest part of having sick people in the house is how sore my hands get from the constant washing. It goes something like this:

Get up. Make tea and egg drop soup. Let the dogs out.

Wash your hands because you touched the dogs.

Take tea and soup to the sickie. Take his temperature while you are in the room.

Clean thermometer and wash hands.

Gather used dishes from sick room and take to kitchen to be washed.

Wash hands.

Take dirty laundry to laundry room and sort it. Start a load.

Wash hands (you have been touching dirty socks and underwear, for goodness sake!).

Rub essential oils into the feet of the sick one. Now, do you wash your hands or not? The essential oils are fragrant, expensive and antiseptic. But, you were touching someone's feet. You should have done this before sorting the laundry... the essential oils would have been good for the laundry, and the feet wouldn't have hurt it any... that laundry has touched worse feet than the ones in the bed upstairs.

In the end, the hands get washed, because your next job is to make a snack...

Start to prepare a glass of ice water and a plate of fruit for the sickie. You are interrupted by a dog, who wants to go outdoors again. You have to touch him to accomplish this, but you are in the middle of food preparation.

There's no way to get out of washing your hands again.

And so it goes.

I need to go put some coconut oil on my hands. Too bad I'll probably have a reason to have to wash it off again in 3 minutes.