Sick

We've been sick at our house.  It's seriously been really miserable.  It started out with Jason acting strange and not wanting to eat.  He had a fever one night, but then was completely normal for a week.  Then, he crashed again but didn't have a fever.  He'd wake up screaming, or talk in his sleep (yelling for Nate to "stop it!").  It was just really odd.  He will not take medicine of any sort, so I didn't really know what to do with him.  When he got a high fever again, I managed to get him to take some meds by pretending to cry and telling him that I was just really sad that he was so sick.  We both cried together until I told him that I'd feel better if he'd take some meds.  He finally did it to make me happy and I felt terribly guilty that I could manipulate him like that.  It was for his own good, but it was still sort of mean.
Anyway, long story short, one night, I was sleeping with Jason in his bed when Nate woke up and told me his cheek hurt.  I gave him some ibuprofen and we all went back to sleep.  We skipped church that day and by noon, both boys had ruptured ear drums.  Neither boy had a fever to warn me and both had just complained a bit about sore faces.  After the rupture, Nate got a fever and wouldn't stop crying about the pain.  It was so sad.
We kept him on tylenol and ibuprofen and took them both in to the doc the next morning.
I was actually surprised that Jason's was a rupture.  He was oozing stuff out of his ear, but he still didn't have a fever and he wasn't complaining about it at all.  He wasn't taking any meds either.  Nate's ear was leaking so much stuff that we had to keep a cotton ball in it and change it out all the time.  This is gross, but his drainage was bloody.  Jason just had a little bit of dried crust around his ear.  So, when the doctor told me both boys had ruptured drums, I was really surprised about Jason.  Now that I know that, I realized that any time there's stuff leaking out at all it's from a rupture.  I just didn't put two and two together.
Anyway, when the doctor told me Jason would have an antibiotic, I was bummed.  I knew it would be a fight two times a day for 10 days.  I told her that he won't take meds and she said, talking to Jason "oh, you'll take this stuff!  It tastes like bubble gum!  You like bubble gum, don't you?"  He nods that he likes bubble gum and she gets him to agree to take the medicine.  Then she turns smugly to me and tells me that he'll take it.
I was thinking that I wished we could take the first dose at the office so she could see what I was up against.
I picked up the prescription and just about died when I saw that each boy would have to take 2 bottles of it.  We got home and Nate took his willingly.  Jason was looking forward to the bubble gum, but saw that the bubble gum was in a squirty syringe and was out.
The way I get medicine down Jason is to sit down on the floor, put his head in the v of my legs so I can pin his arms and legs under my legs.  Then I pry his mouth open with the syringe and squirt it, tiny bits at a time, while I hold his mouth open so he can't work it toward the front with his tongue and spit it out.  He chokes and splutters and if anyone saw me doing that to my kid they'd throw me in jail.  It is the worst.  It's not cool.  It hurts if the syringe slips and he can chomp down on my finger.  It's also a huge mess.
He is old enough to reason with.  So, I try to reason with him.  I tell him that he's going to take the medicine no matter what, so I'll give him gum (or anything really) if he'll just take it willingly.  He cries and tells me that he'd rather that I pin him down.  It was just an awful situation.
After 7 days of the struggle, twice a day, he told me he'd just drink it.  I guess he realized that it was coming weather he liked it or not.  So for the last 3 days, he drank the medicine without a fight.  I was so happy about that.  We were both really glad when the last dose came.

He was all better and super happy about it.

Nate's recovery took a bit longer.  His ear was still sore after several days and I was worried about him.  He finally started to feel a bit better though just as Mike was coming down with it.
I had been sick for a week and a half when Mike got it, so I was a bit resentful to see that he was taking naps and going to bed early when I still had all my usual mom duties to attend to.  I did feel bad for him when he had a bad reaction to the z pack and got a bad rash all over his body.  I'm going past week three of this miserable gombu and am mad that I can't taste my food.  What is the point of eating if you can't taste your food!?  Mike still doesn't have a voice.  It's just been the worst bug we've had around here for a long time.  Luckily Jake only ended up with a barking cough and Allie had a sore throat, but nothing else really.
Let's just be done with it okay?
Being sick definitely makes you grateful when you're healthy again.