After a late morning Easter Egg hunt, I told my daughter I’d take care of my two granddaughters (ages 3 & 5) while she and her husband looked at a car they were considering buying.   I took the girls with me on a few errands, and then we stopped by Sonic for some limeades and went back to my house.

The girls left their limeades in the car so they could drink them on their way home later.  We went inside and sat on the sofa to watch “Dora”, and it was a tender time.  One cuddled close on each side of me.  When I took a sip of my limeade, Sunshine asked for a sip.

Now typically I’m not very keen on sharing drinks. I’m a major germ-worrier.  However, I told myself I was being silly.  After all, what harm could there be in sharing a limeade. We were all healthy - and we were family, after all.
Within a couple minutes, we were passing my limeade around between the three of us.  Sunshine would take a sip, and then Sweet Stuff and then me — all three of us using the same straw.  We were all thirsty.  When we finished, we took off the plastic top and took turns eating some of the ice.  We had bought a bunch of plastic Easter eggs and we spent awhile filling them with candy for the Easter egg hunt we’ll have tomorrow evening at PawPaw’s house.

About 45 minutes after we arrived at my house,  my daughter and son-in-law arrived to pick up the girls.  It had been a pleasant and fun time together.
LESS than two hours later my daughter called.  “Mom, did you notice that Sweet Stuff had a fever?”

A FEVER?!  “No, not at all.  She was laughing and having a good time.  She even demonstrated some of her dances.  She cuddled next to me on the sofa for awhile, and I didn’t notice that she felt hot.”

“Well,” continued my daughter, “She’s got a 102 temperature, and the lymph nodes on the left side of her neck are swollen bigger than a golf ball!  I’m on the way to the walk-in clinic with her.”

WHAT?!!!!  I was with the child less than two hours earlier and she seemed fine!  Was I so oblivious that I didn’t notice that her neck was swollen and that she was running a 102 fever?!
I drove to the walk-in clinic and met them as they were leaving.  Sweet Stuff has a serious case of strep throat.

Now ain’t that just par for the course?  The ONE time I convince myself to chill out about possibly passing around germs and we all share the same drink, within TWO hours, she ends up with strep throat.  Now Sunshine will almost certainly get it — and probably me, too.
And this week at school is TCAP week (standardized testing), which means it will be a major deal for me to miss a day if I get strep, too.  Sigh!

My daughter told me that Sunshine told her that her throat had been hurting for a couple of days but that she hadn’t said anything because she didn’t want to go to the doctor and get a shot.  Double sigh!

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 15th, 2006 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Sweet Stuff & Sunshine, That's My Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.