wed mar 7-boys home, back to dr tonight for them.  more swatching for shawl, blanket yarn pic

Kept the boys home again today.  They only had low-grade fevers last night, and I was thinking that they might be able to go to school today.  It was Yannick’s morning to get up with the kids, and when I got up I asked how they were doing.  He said Henri was acting fine, but Jakob seemed sick.  I took their temperatures and Jakob had no fever any more, and Henri’s was low-grade again (99.8).  You just can’t tell from how they’re acting!  I was debating sending Jakob to school but really didn’t want to go out if I didn’t have to, and right as I was thinking about it he had a mini coughing fit and sneezed a few times, and I realized it wasn’t worth going out to bring him there.  Plus we still haven’t heard back from his strep test, even the 24 hour results aren’t in yet.

Because they still weren’t well, and it has been 3 days since Sunday when we saw the doctor last, I called up to book an appointment.  It was 8:30 when I called (they open the phone lines 30 min before they open for booking “emergency” visits) and they were already booking for 2pm!  The entire day had filled up already!  I really didn’t want to bring them in during nap time, so even though it would suck to go out at night if it got cold, I decided to wait and call back a bit later when they had gotten closer to 5pm.  Sure enough, about 45 minutes (and 3 call attempts) later, I was able to book a 5pm appointment, meaning I could let the kids nap until the usual 4:30 then get them ready and leave and be there just on time.

They played well in the morning, and ate well even though I gave them a light lunch.  At nap time Henri fell asleep right away, and Jakob was still up and playing when I went in around 3:00 to ask him to be quiet.  I was DEFINITELY thinking that Jakob was feeling much better, and be able to go back to school.  Around 4:00 Henri woke up and asked if he could go play with Jakob, I said sure ‘cus I knew Jakob would love a partner to play with.  Imagine my surprise when 2 minutes later Henri came back saying he couldn’t wake Jakob up!  Huh?  Wake him?  I went upstairs to check- and sure enough Jakob was SOUND asleep across his bed.  Oy.

Before heading out to the doctor I took their temperatures again just to be able to tell the doctor what was going on.  Jakob had no fever at all (97.2 by the time I took it out).  His only current symptoms were a bit-more-than-occasional cough, runny nose and sneezing.  Plus the unknown strep results.  Henri, on the other hand, had gone up to 102.2!  The poor kid- his voice was “off”, his nose was really runny but thick, and he had the occasional cough/sneeze.

While we waited for the doctor I asked the lab if they had Jakob’s results- no.  They said to check with the doctor’s receptionists, which I didn’t do because I’d be seeing the doctor herself in a minute or two.  She took a look at Jakob first and said that his symptoms (fever and red throat first, fading to cough/sneeze) seemed likely that he had a virus.  If the strep test were to turn out positive, then he probably just had a cold on top of the strep, but assuming it was negative, he had a virus and once he’s fever free (which he is) and back to himself (which he isn’t) then he can go back to school.  Henri also seemed to just have a virus, though because his fever has been since last Friday or Saturday night, if it continued a few more days we’d have to do an x-ray to make sure it wasn’t a light pneumonia (even though he wasn’t coughing much).  Just in case, though, she gave us a strep test requisition paper and rx for amoxil so that if Jakob’s test were to come back positive, we could get Henri checked too, and then fill the rx without having to come back in.  She didn’t have Jakob’s results so she told us to check with reception.

That’s when it almost got comical.  We go out to reception and they say they asked the lab for the results, but she was busy and couldn’t tell them right away.  I asked if I should wait because should it be positive we’d have to test Henri, but the lab had just closed so they couldn’t even test him anyways.  They said that they were open until 7:30, so if Jakob’s results did come in before they closed they’d call me, and if positive I could come back with Henri the next day to be tested.  So I get the kids ready to leave and RIGHT as we’re about to walk out they say they have the results!  Jakob’s 5 minute and 24 hr tests were both negative, but the 48 hour one was positive.

Huh?  Now that the kid has no fever and only a cough & sneeze as symptoms, which are NOT symptoms of strep, NOW he has strep?  Okay…  Well, can they test Henri, since we’re still here?  Nope, she tells me, ‘cus the lab really is closed.  But another lab nearby is still open.  It was 5:45pm, the kids hadn’t eaten supper yet, and I didn’t want to feed them before Henri was tested in case swallowing food would slough away any bacteria from the back of his throat.  If I’m paying for a strep test, I want them finding any and all available bacteria!!

The rest of the next hour and a half was a “hurry-up-and-wait” blur.  First we drove to the other lab, near the local hospital.  After a short wait Henri had his test done, then we had to wait 15 minutes for their quick-test results.  I tried bringing the kids to a cafe next door for a soup and cookie, something for a light supper, but they were closed.  The only thing open during the wait was a depaneur, so the best I could do to tide them over was get them each a drink (no sharing right now!) and a big cookie for the 3 of us to share.  The 15 minute test was negative, so now we’ve got to wait.  Since Jakob’s test was positive after the long growing span, I won’t know for sure until at least Friday if Henri has strep or not.  Which means we’re home for the rest of the week.

We couldn’t go home yet, though, because we still had to fill Jakob’s amoxil.  I know from past experience that it takes about 10-15 minutes to fill that rx because they make it only once the order comes in (I assume), but I really didn’t want to get the boys home 10 minutes before bedtime and THEN feed them.  So we hit up a McDonald’s drive through for some nuggets and fries, and I fed them while sitting in the waiting chairs at the pharmacy.  Not the best meal in the best place, but the best I could do at the time.  By the time the rx was filled and we got home, it was 10 minutes past their 7pm bedtime.  Oy.

I think the rush of activity wore them both out, because once they were in bed, neither one got up again.  They both passed right out.

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If I get back to the crafting, which is why most of you are probably here, I did more planning of swatches in Excel.  I did work up a quick swatch to test out decrease angles for a little motif I’m hoping to include in the pattern, but since I’m hoping to publish this pattern, I can’t actually show any photos here.

Instead I’ll give you this photo:

I figured it would be a good idea to have a group pic of all the yarns used in my sparkly woven blanket before they were used up in the blanket.  Because I’m striping them randomly it’s not easy to tell from the project what the yarns that went into it looked like, so this will be my reminder.

I hope you’re all healthy!