The Boy Wonder has been battling what feels like the bug to end all bugs, since around January 25th. That day, I took him to our family doctor because we thought he had pink eye. A few days later, the pink eye seemed resolved, but he had a wicked sore throat and a fever. Another trip to the doc - yep, positive strep results.
We started penicillin for him that day, opting for the liquid instead of the shot because hubby has an extreme allergy and we wanted to make sure the Boy Wonder hadn't inherited it. (10 days of penicillin later, he showed no signs of the allergy. At least we have that going for us.)
Almost as soon as he finished the penicillin, the Boy Wonder developed a wet-sounding, chesty cough. Nothing major, we thought - maybe he caught a cold while his immune system was down with the strep. Except... two days later, he spiked another fever, this one 102, and knowing he'd just finished antibiotics, this Mom was a little freaked out. Back to see the family doc.
We got ANOTHER positive strep test (worth noting that B.W. has never had strep before this year, though he did have recurrent ear infections as a baby/toddler), and a prescription for Zithromax over five days, plus instructions to coddle and snuggle as needed. Couch time with my favorite boy? Yeah, twist my arm!
Except... the cough seemed to get worse instead of better, sounding deeper and deeper in his chest all the time. And on day three of the Zithromax, the Boy Wonder spiked a 101 temperature. Back to the family doc. Again.
This time, I was able to convince the doctor to listen to me - I knew something was going on, and I was pretty sure at this point it was not just plain old strep throat. Boy Wonder got a shot in the backside of stronger antibiotics (Zithromax combined with Rocephin) and a chest x-ray that confirmed pneumonia in his lower left lung - though probably viral, rather than bacterial, pneumonia, our doctor believed the strep weakened B.W.'s immune system and made him more susceptible to the eventual virus in his chest. He may even have gotten that from me. In the middle of his strep infection, I got a nasty sinus infection that knocked me flat. What are the odds I exposed him to the virus that caused my own infection?
Would ANY of this be the big deal it had become if we had never been exposed to the mold in the first place? I have no idea, but I certainly suspect both Boy Wonder and I have weaker immune systems now than we did before. I know I get sicker easier now and it tends to be more severe when I am sick. Fortunately, B.W. really hadn't had any big illness since the exposure - the occasional cold, but nothing more drastic than that. Until now.
We're both taking probiotics now to try to rebuild our immune system (especially since B.W. had so many antibiotics all at once there). But I honestly don't know what else we can do about our weaker immune systems. We can't live our lives in a bubble. Am I supposed to tell his friends, "Sorry, we can't play today - you might make us sick?"
I look back over what I've done for my own health in the past few years and realize it's pretty dang extensive. I tried chiropractic. I had my tonsils removed. I had acupuncture. Some of it's helped. None of it has completely fixed me. Boy Wonder was never quite as sick as I was initially with the exposure, but now I wonder what I have missed lying under the surface.
