2007-01-18 - 8:47 p.m.

In an ironic twist, while the schools seem to be a bit freaked out that I kept the children home, it may in fact be a blessing.

I recall a memo coming home from one school that there was a case of WHOOPING cough in my child's class.

They might be grateful I kept a carrier of it at home!

I just realized tonight, as I am feeling that slight sore throat that the girls have complained about over the past week, and as I was excessively tired this afternoon, and as I opened bedroom doors to monitor the hacking wheezy cough and have the youngest propped up in my bed so she can't choke on phelgm (and I had her and Raitlin both join me in bed last night so I could hear them and monitor them.... thus me now catching it)-- that it is pretty clear that we are all likely fighting off WHOOPING COUGH.

A few nights ago I though it was an oncoming croup I heard in the youngest, and I was up most of the night monitoring what I thought was a little bout of croup.

All our girls have had croup, which is a scary thing the first time you deal with it as a parent. Like anything else though, once familiar it is not quite as unsettling. So I monitored and lost the typical sleep and web surfed as I was way too tired to really do anything productive.

But tonight as I listened I recalled that memo sent home from school a few weeks ago, and went to this site:

http://www.whoopingcough.net/symptoms.htm

Sadie has been begging me to give her the cough medicine I have given the other three girls as she too has an intermittent cough.But it was SO INTERMITTENT that I hadn't given her any. I told her I would leave her door open and listen to hear if she needed it.

Now the strange irony is that except for yesterday when Katie actually woke up and threw up phelgm, I would have sent her and her big sister to school with what seemed like a mild cold as they are not coughing that often and haven't runny noses nor are they sneezing. But I listened at night to them and heard the postnasal drip and gave cough syrup, thinking that was sufficient.

I am REALLY tired now. I have a few things I intended to accomplish tonight... I laughed as I came back on the computer and saw the "Idle 147 minutes" note.... so much for getting anything done now. Now that I know all there is about WHOOPING COUGH and I understand it is INFANTS who can die from it, and that toddlers AGE 2 should be able to handle it-- I can't wait to go to sleep! I'll still be aware if there is any hacking coughs to listen well, but am a bit less worried about it after reading all about it.

http://www.whoopingcough.net/symptoms.htm

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