Influenza A

Well, after I posted, the cough started, and by Sunday morning we knew we had to take her in and get tested. She's positive for influenza A, and was early enough to start on Tamaflu...and Mira will, too, as a preventative measure.

Sunday was another miserable day for Bobbi, but today she was better enough that she was listening to music again, did about an hour of her home work with me, and was well enough to comment that there were nice sides to being sick!

She's sticking to her room, partly because her energy levels for moving around are still pretty low, and partly a self-quarantine to avoid exposure to others. (Only some of us have gotten the flu shot...and she was one of them!) She was well enough to sit in her chair today and not just lay in bed, so we pulled a huge bib over her (my mom makes these and calls them "man-bibs"!! My uncle wears one over his suit when he's eating in the car while driving to meetings...), and made a make shift lap table with some silicone hot pads under a cookie sheet so she could eat soup without making a mess. I think she was having fun with it. ;)

I think back to the first time Krassimir was really sick a few months after coming home. That was the first time he let us hold him for any period of time without sobbing, desperate to get away. It's a little different for Bobbi who's been able to form a quite close relationship with both of us much more quickly than we had been preparing ourselves for, but we've left one of our phones with her during these nights so she can get to us if she needs help (because her room is just far enough away that we can't hear her if she just calls for us with her voice). The first night, even when she was so crazy sick and weak with the fever, she kept saying she didn't want to wake us up. Dad and I both insisted that this is what parents DO when their kids are sick. They want to be able to help them, and it's worth losing sleep over! And both of the last two nights she did decide to give us a call in the night - for more Tylenol, and to check her temperature. I'm not sure it's resulting in the same dramatic bonding experience it was with Krassimir, but we'll take any chance to stick one more little "note" of sorts into the "you're worth something!" pocket of her brain, and there's nothing like coming down at 3am without complaining to do that.