A negative and a positive.

On Tuesday morning, Sarah came down for breakfast and said her throat was sore.  I didn't think much of it because she's a mouth breather at night and often wakes up with a scratchy throat (which I attribute to all the nighttime mouth breathing.) 

She made a cup of tea for breakfast and said her throat felt better.  I checked her temp and it was normal so off to school she went.

When she got in the car at the end of the day, she said her throat was still sore.  When we got home, I checked her temp and it was  99, so I gave her some pain reliever for her throat and she finished her homework. 

When she got up the next morning her fever was 100 and she said her throat was very sore so she got to stay home.  I had an afternoon full of PTO meetings so she spent the day watching shows on the laptop, doing some homework (she can check her assignments online) and generally just hanging out.

When I got home from my meetings at 5:30, she said her throat hurt "really bad".  Lovely.  It must be strep throat. 

Luckily our doctor's office has walk-in clinic hours from 5:30 -8:30 Monday - Friday so we hopped in the car and headed there. At the entrance to the office, they had their "if you have a fever please put one of these masks on" sign perched right beside a basket full of those lovely face masks that are all the rage in China. Sarah was not happy about having to wear one of those.

In the exam room, I told the receptionist and the nurse that I thought it was strep because I had looked into her throat and thought I could see some of those dreaded white spots. So the nurse cultured her throat and we waited.  As the nurse was leaving she said, "And if the strep test comes back negative, we'll do the flu test."

"The flu?", I mentally scoffed.  It's not the flu.  If it was the flu, she would be laid out on the couch unable to move.

The nurse came back in and declared, "It's not strep!" and did the culture for the flu. 

And a few minutes later, the PA came  in wearing gloves and a face mask and said, "It's the flu!  And the test isn't just sort of positive, it is definitely the flu!"

"But, but, but..." I stammered.  When she had the flu in 1st grade (the year I wasn't able to get a flu shot for the kids because I missed the window at our doctor's office and drug stores won't give them to kids under 18) she was miserable.  She missed an entire week of school and literally laid on the couch or in bed for 5 days unable to move. 

"She's been up, watching tv, doing homework, eating. How can it be the flu?"

The PA informed me that most likely the flu shot she got this year has helped keep her symptoms to a minimum. 

As we checked out, the receptionist said, "Was it strep?" 

"Nope, it was the flu!"

She got a panicked look on her face and immediately applied a large blob of hand sanitizer to her hands and forearms.  I'm certain that after we left she sprayed down everything because as we were leaving, I saw our nurse wiping down the door handles to the waiting room door.

We headed to Walgreens where the pharmacy tech informed me that they ran out of Tamiflu the day before but that they had just gotten one more package in earlier that afternoon.

So we scarfed that up along with a giant bottle of antibacterial spray and headed home. 

The doctor told her she couldn't go back to school until Monday and she was mad because other than being a little tired (and a lot contagious) she felt fine.

Yesterday, she was up all day, did her homework and watched more tv.  At lunch time she declared she wanted Chick-Fil-A so we went through the drive through.  She hasn't had a fever since Wednesday night but her throat was still a little sore yesterday.

She's still asleep right now so I don't know how she's doing today but I know she's going to be bored. We might drive around somewhere just to get out of the house - there's only so many episodes of "Jessie" she can watch.

Luckily no one else has gotten it.  Peter and I have also had our flu shots but Dan hasn't gotten his yet.  I'm putting a trip to Walgreen's on his to-do list this weekend.

And thanks to having my dear little one home, now I'm really behind on my online Christmas shopping.  There's so much to do and so little time!  I better get cracking while she's still asleep!