Tylenol, Motrin, Antibiotics, Oh My!!

When we decided to put Kaden into a day school part time we figured sickness was inevitable. I want to say about 80% of the time he was in school he was sick with some kind of yuckiness. It was either a runny nose, fever, ear infections, or viral infections. It was constant! I could probably get my MD just from being in the doctor’s office so much. When it came time for school to end and summer to start I thought to myself YES, we will get a break from all the crud that gets passed around from kid to kid. School let out in April and it is now the end of June and we were on a roll without any doctor’s appointments for colds, viruses, etc. We were doing so well, up until today! Kaden woke up this morning and was complaining about his head hurting. I always wondered if kids his age ever got headaches because he has never said anything about his head hurting before. Kevin gave him some Tylenol and off he went to go play with his trains. After Kevin left for work I asked Kaden again if he didn't feel good and he said that his head and his neck hurt this time. Me being worry mom, I felt his forehead which it felt a little warm and I thought OMG, he has meningitis! I asked him if he could touch his chin to his chest which he could so I wasn't as worried but literally within 10 minutes of all of this going on, he went from being his active playful self to this lethargic, pitiful little boy. By this time also he was burning up. I called the doctor and told them his symptoms and they scheduled an appointment for us with his doctor. We had several hours before he had to go and I also gave him another dose of Tylenol. The Tylenol kicked in and he had a small burst of energy right before we left. At 3:15 we got to the doctor’s office and luckily we didn't have to wait long. The nurse came in and checked his vitals. He felt cool to the touch but had the highest temperature of the day which was strange to me. After the nurse left, the doctor came in and assessed him. She told us that the symptoms of the head hurting and the neck hurting sounded like strep throat. She had him move his head from side to side and up and down which he was able to do so I don't think she was as concerned about meningitis. They ran a strep culture which came back negative but she said she was going to run a 3 day culture to hopefully rule that out because since his symptoms just started today, the rapid one could have shown negative even though it was positive. She went ahead and gave us a prescription for antibiotics and was going to let us know how the test results came out to see if he needed to stay on the meds or if it is just a viral infection and would need to run its course! So here we are, the first sickness of the summer and I thought that maybe, just maybe we would make it through the whole summer without getting sick! To make matters worse, Kaden gets BAD diarrhea when he takes antibiotics. I am debating keeping a pull up on him until we are done with this stuff. He is potty trained but I would hate for him to not be able to make it to the bathroom in time and it gets EVERYWHERE! He already pee pee'd on the couch this morning because the poor little thing was just too sick to get up and go to the potty himself! Oh and it used to be where, when he would get sick he was all snuggles and love and now that he is a BIG boy, he wants nothing to do with the snuggle time! Poor mommy! I am just hoping that this doesn't last long and doesn't make its way around the whole family