Sickies

Our family had a 7 week period of sickness starting in the middle of January all the way through Spring Break. It was terrible, we wondered if we were going to have to cancel our Anniversary Trip. Thankfully, the weather got better and our pediatrician was able to patch us up and had us totally prepared with meds too.

All of this was because of H1N1 (the swine flu). I will forever regret not getting all of us immunized. For the record, I am not against vaccinations so that is where my point of view comes from. We get flu shots normally, I was just busy and forgot about the swine flu one since we did out regular flu shots before Labor Day. Then I figured we were pretty healthy, not even a sniffle or cold all fall and through Christmas.

But of course we weren't immune Rose, Me, and Ginger were hit pretty hard. The boys a little less because of Tamiflu. As it turns out the week we had the Swine Flu was just the beginning. Apparently, the big deal about the swine flu is all the secondary infections.

Here is a round-up of what we were actually diagnosed with the 7 weeks after:

*Ear Infection (Rose)
*Kidney Infection (Rose)
*Pneumonia (Ginger)
*Ear Infection (Stephanie)
*Bronchitis (Rose)
*Sinus Infection (Nathan)
*Viral Infection with High Fevers(Stephanie)
*Viral Infection with High Fevers (Darin)
*Ear Infection (Ginger)
*Pneumonia (Rose)
*Pneumonia (Ginger)

**On top of being totally weak for about two weeks, and about a month of coughing!

Thankfully, we have pretty good insurance. Ken has a pretty limited expense to cover our family with insurance. We pay $20 co-pay for doctor's visits. Prescriptions range from $10, $15, $25. We do pay a $250 deductible for tests and extras that are not a doctor appt. It's kind of weird how they figure it out, but we haven't come close to reaching it for any of us yet.

Here is a round-up of what the swine flu costed us financially:
Doctor Co-Pays: $260
Labs: $78
Prescription Co-Pays: $270
Chiropractor Co-Pays: $163 (This was for me because holding the girls sitting up in bed completely messed up my lower back muscles for months)
Grand Total: $771

**This does not take into account all of the medicines like Tylenol or Cough Medicine, or the "we're just hanging on for dear life" costs for fast food or take-out, or special drinks and requests like that. Or the fact that I will probably need to replace our nebulizer next season. When you take all of those extra costs into account we could have went on a medium priced vacation. Probably comparable to going to Disneyworld. Which I am not an amusement park person but I would have rather spent our $$$ on that!

So YES, next year on top of not every wanting to feel that excruciatingly awful. We will instead pay $120 and get all 6 of us vaccinated immediately! Can I just say it is totally ironic that 2 days after we came down with the swine flu the boys school offered a free clinic giving away the shots to any parent or child who attended their school. And my good friend Jean was the one doing them too. Seriously, not funny!

Here are the only pictures that were taken to commemorate this time in our lives. Geez I wonder why??? Well, yeah we were totally sick. But, Ken was traveling quite a bit too. It was like he would be home and they would be recovering and some-what healthy, then leave and they would get sick. And then the weeks he wasn't traveling I had just a few things going on like Stake Youth Conference, my week to teach preschool, Getting ready for Girls Camp, and Huge Projects at School.

Seriously don't ask me how we survived. All I know is that we did somehow, there were only like 4 days out of the 8 weeks where I was at my total limit. I know the many Priesthood Blessings totally worked, my mother took care of us, and I completely and absolutely ADORE our pediatrician! (read me glowing about her below the pictures)

She may be sick, but she is still beautiful!


Ginger is by far the most impressive 2 year old I've had using a nebulizer. You would think she used it everyday of her life. Ginger will sit there pretty patiently and just hold it up to her face. She is quite the trooper!

Our pediatrician is the very best Doctor we have ever had! Honestly, I wish she could be my primary physician. We saw her 7 out of the 8 weeks we were sick. I would also talk to her at least once a week on the phone. If she is ever worried she will follow-up with a phonecall. There was one week when I either spoke to her or saw her every single day except for Thursday. It was so bad that she actually called us both Saturday and Sunday too. It's great that I can get my kids in usually within just a few hours of calling. Her office staff is amazing! They are so nice and return phonecalls. Basically, I trust her, I know she loves my kids, she is fairly relaxed and has an easy-going personality. Plus she is pretty thorough. We took Ginger to a heart specialist and he was barely able to catch what he Doctor had heard without all the fancy equipment--He was very impressed that she had heard it with just the stethescope (it turned out to be nothing, but I am glad that she will send us to specialists if she suspects anything). Here is an example: Darin has always had a funny run, it's nothing really and none of his other doctor's seemed to think anything of it when he was younger. I brought it up to every single one of them mutiple times. She ended up sending us to a specialist and the problem was easily solved, he just needed a special insert for his shoes. The pain in his legs went away, his run is a whole lot smoother, and he likes to be active a whole ton more!

I especially love that she trusts my instincts and respects what we believe in too. She checks in with me before discussing controversial subjects with our boys. Which is so nice because they see her as an authoritative figure.

Here is an example: Our boys are at the point where their well-checks involve Maturation Topics. The AAP supports and says that masturbating is a healthy part of maturation. Which we totally disagree with in our family. She checked-in with me before talking to them. It seemed pretty clear that she supports the AAP, but she did not argue with our beliefs or try to impose hers. In meeting with our son afterwards she whole-heartedly supported me and our position.