Ear infections and things

Swim team always seems to do Alexander in. 

Last year he wound up with pneumonia. 

He's been sick for the last little while as well. 

We've been battling swimmer's ear all summer. 

And then he caught a respiratory thing that has been lingering and lingering and lingering. 

Last night when he was saying goodnight he casually announced that he couldn't hear anything out of one ear (isn't that weird? But it's probably fine. I love you, goodnight!). 

Yeah. So, we decided we needed to take him to the doctor in the morning.

This child does not register pain like a normal person (he...ignores it...or something). He didn't seem to have a fever, either (though at the doctor he had a temperature of 99°F, so barely a fever)...turns out he has a raging ear infection. 

Go figure.

And a sinus infection.

That we figured on.

So he's on a concoction antibiotics for those infections (and is really excited for the gummy probiotics that he gets to take between doses of antibiotics). 

*****

Around 4:00 in the morning when Andrew was still up with Phoebe, who was coughing and coughing, Andrew decided he may as well take Phoebe in at the same time. 

She definitely has a viral infection (that the doctors are seeing a lot of right now), but it doesn't seem to have caused a bacterial infection yet, so we're just supposed to keep managing her symptoms until she gets better. Typically this illness has been lasting only a few days. 

Here's hoping—because Benjamin and Zoë are starting to act a little sniffly and they have their county swim meet next weekend, which we'd like them to be healthy for.

I've only been healthy for about a week, myself. I'm too tired to get very sick again already!

And Andrew's been really carrying a double load the last little while...he doesn't deserve to get sick, either. 

So he's tucked into bed taking an afternoon nap. I had a series of meetings this morning, so he was the one to get up with Phoebe in the night. And he took Benjamin and Zoë to swimming. And Phoebe and Alexander to the doctor. 

He really needs to get some work done, but...I told him the most productive thing he could do was to sleep for a little while before attempting to work. 

He tried to push against that idea but ultimately decided that was true. He's running on three hours of sleep and that's just...not enough.