I’m really thankful that no one in our household has had the flu this year. We had a couple of cases of strep in the fall, but we’ve managed pretty well with little more than a few sniffles here and there during the winter.

 

Last week, three of the boys (over the span of about five days) came down with a viral respiratory infection. We tried quarantining the first one at Nana & Granddad’s house, but I guess we didn’t catch it soon enough. The second one started running fever about two days later, then the third one the following day. We repeatedly washed sheets and sanitized game controllers, faucet handles & doorknobs all week long!

 

Like I said, I am glad that it wasn’t worse — and I’m going to sound like a terrible parent for this next remark — but I found myself kinda wishing that it would be something like strep or an ear infection … something the doc could give medicine to fix. A virus is a terrible diagnosis, because not only do you just have to wait it out, but you can only treat the symptoms (and what kid likes the taste of cough syrup?! – gag!), then you are supposed to wait 24 hours post-fever before they can return to school! Between you & me & the blogosphere, I will admit that we don’t always wait 24 hours. If he’s already missed two days and is feeling better at bedtime and isn’t running fever in the morning, then it’s back to school time.

 

Another thing I often wonder is how we can have antiseptic wipes, antibacterial/antiviral hand lotion and disinfectant spray, yet we haven’t figured out an antiviral medication? If they can kill the germs on contact, why can’t they kill the germs in our bodies? We have all but eradicated polio and smallpox, yet we can’t cure the common cold or influenza.

 

Why not? (Asks the journalism major who would’ve studied something really useful like virology or genetics if she’d not been turned off by the nauseating smell of formaldehyde in Bio I in high school and had stuck with the advanced-placement science track like she was capable of doing. But, I digress.)