I believe we need a quarantine sign for our front door. My mid-week mild sore throat was full-blown strep by Friday, knocking me out for a full day and leaving John a single parent. Thank goodness he was able to pick the kids up at noon, work from home during naps, and then take the rest of the day off. There is no way I could have kept them safe and entertained. I believe I was out of bed for a total of about three hours on Friday including the time it took to get to the doctor and back. I was horrified at first when the nurse said it would take 48 hours for the throat culture results. I asked about the rapid test and she said, "Oh, yeah, if that's positive they don't do the culture. It takes 40 minutes." I don't think she believed I was sick because she didn't measure a fever. I believe that was operator error on her part (or the equipment) since I'd taken 100.7 at home just before I left and deliberately did not take ibuprofen until after they'd taken my vitals. Anyway, the 40-minute test was returned in less than 15 with a positive result so I was out the door with my prescription.

I was feeling better by noonish on Saturday (24 hours after first meds) and back up to speed by Sunday. However, John started feeling sick Sunday night and Daniel woke up with a rash all over his cheek this morning. I thought I remembered something about a rash associated with strep and looked it up. This said the abdomen would show the fist signs and Daniel's is confined to his right cheek and ear. But it also said a rash like this can be a strep skin infection (rather than accompanying strep throat) if the bacteria enters the body through a cut, scrape, etc. Daniel's nose has been red, raw for at least a week from being wiped so often, so there definitely would have been opportunity for me to infect him before I knew I was contagious. Poor kid.

We couldn't get in to the dr. until 1:30 this afternoon, so John is going to take him and get his own throat culture in the same trip. Will Ed be next? Stay tuned, but we sure hope not!

The silver lining for Daniel is that he enjoyed his first Jell-O on Friday when I was having an afternoon "snack." Whenever Daniel sees someone eating, he screams and grunts, pointing at the food item until it is shared with him. Obviously, he got his own cup in this case. As you'll see, he kinda liked it.