Tidings of discomfort and misery

Okay, so perhaps the title is a little bleak, but it pretty much sums up the outcome of our Christmas holidays. We had the best intentions of fully enjoying the break but it seems that our immune systems took the "holly" and "jolly" right out of us.

I won’t get into the graphic details but let’s just say that, over the past three weeks, we have evolved from coughing and fevers, to intimate relationships between our posteriors and the toilet, and back to colds and coughing again. It all started with our little carrier monkey picking up a bug at daycare. He seemed cheery enough on Christmas Eve, but we could easily see that he wasn’t himself on Christmas Day and worse still on Boxing Day. He spent most of Christmas dinner sulking in some capacity. Boxing Day dinner was peppered by several bouts of coughing so hard that he vomited. Nothing says Bon appetit more than catching a handful of your child's vomit at the dinner table while others are trying to enjoy the lovely spread of food - poor kiddo :(

Sleep has been somewhat elusive for all of us, with frequent wakeups due to coughing fits. We brought Drew to the paediatrician on Tuesday and he had some bronchial irritation and a bad cold; he was prescribed some medication to help break up the phlegm in his chest and it seems to be helping a bit now – thankfully! Now that he seems on the mend, in true form, he has passed to torch onto Mommy. I have been sick for the past three days now with the worst cold I have experienced in some time. My throat was getting so sore that it kept waking up at night. Knowing that something was “off” I went to the doctor this morning and was diagnosed with a bad case of Strep A. Now I’m just hoping that Drew won’t get the Strep from me – hubby is already showing signs of being the next lucky contestant.

So there you have it – a pretty horrid holiday. The only times we have crossed our front door is to venture out to see the doctor or pick-up medicine. No lovely walks in the snow, no tobogganing, no visiting with friends or family. We had to cancel several dinners, including a New Year’s party that we were planning to host. Needless to say, this wasn’t the happy ending that we were hoping for, to an already difficult year.

On the plus side, I am looking forward to healthier 2012.