Anxiety, bleeding hands, and fevers

The title pretty much sums up what is going on in our house right now.  It's like my worst nightmare, and apparently, I'm destined to have this same nightmare once a year.  It's weeks like this when I question my sanity, and my choice on not to vaccinate my kids with the flu shot. 

If you know me, you know I have an extreme aversion to germs.  Even on a "normal" day, I wash my hands 50+ times a day.  This past week I've gone through two bottles of hand soap, and these are by no means small bottles!  My hands are a disaster.  They look like they belong to a 70 year old woman -all wrinkled, cracked, scaly.  They could also be compared to turtle skin (turtle skin? do turtles have skin?).  Every night, before bed, I have to lather them up with a little lot of Burt's Bee's Hand Creme (best stuff ever for people like me!), so that my skin can regenerate before I wake up in the morning. 

Because of my germaphobia, my anxiety has been through the roof.  I'm pretty proud of myself though, I've dealt really well.  I haven't even had a single crying episode, although for one tiny moment in time I was yelling and kicking crap around, throwing a tiny little tantrum.  Then I got over it.  Last year I tried quarantining all of the sick kids to one room, and the healthy kids to another, but all that did was prolong the sickness for a month (see last years blog post).  This year I just let them all sleep in their regular rooms, in their regular beds.  I didn't freak out, washing toys & clothes that the sick kids had touched.  I figured that it was here, let them get it, and get it out of this house.

 Today is the tenth day since the flu presented itself here, and we only have 1 kid that is sick today, and 1 kid that hasn't gotten it.  Ethen was the first kid to get it.  I knew what it was the minute he came home from school with a cough, congestion & high fever.  He was fine when he left for school, not even a trace of a cough.  I took him to the urgent care that night to get a diagnosis and hopefully a prescription for some tamiflu (thinking that it would cure him faster).  We got the prescription, but after finding out it was $60 for one prescription, and that insurance wouldn't cover it, and that it only takes ONE day off the flu, I said "forget that!"  Can you imagine paying $60 x 8 kids just to lessen the flu by one day?! pffft.  Instead, I went to the health food store and bought Oscillococcinum, a homeopathic remedy.  It has worked fantastically, and I've probably spent close to $60 on it, but it's treated everyone! 

We were pretty disappointed that our Spring Break vacation from school was ruined by everyone having the flu, but at least the kids didn't have to miss school, and thanks to the Oscilloccinum, it's been pretty mild.   We had great plans to go camping and work on our yard, but I guess we will just have to go camping later in the season, and Cade & I can probably get more accomplished without the kids in the yard, than we can with them helping! ;)