Sick, sick, sick... and then glee!

Oy, we've been sick. Here's the organ recital:
It's been about two weeks all told, with all four of us visiting the doctor at one time or another and at least two mis-diagnoses. First Agatha had a bad cold. Then after five days, she developed fever and some diarrhea. I assumed it must be an ear infection or other secondary infection after the cold; the doc said her chest and ears were clear but thought it must be a sinus infection, and the diarrhea was simply due to the runny nose. So she started on amoxicillin. The next day, I started feeling bad, developing fever and body aches. Since I didn't have a cold but had had a freak allergy attack the day before, I wondered if I might have a sinus infection, too. After dragging at work for a morning, going home feverish in the afternoon and suffering terrible chills that night, the next day I went to doctor, who swabbed me for strep throat. Which, it turns out, I had! At least, I had the bacteria. I had no sore throat or sinus infection, just the upset tummy and fever and chills. But the doc surmised that what was making both me and Agatha sick. Michael had also started feeling poorly, so we thought maybe he'd be coming down with it next. Indeed, over the next day, his fever started, and he started on amoxicillin too. Meanwhile, none of us seemed to be really improving. In fact, the antibiotics were just making the diarrhea worse. Henry came home from school feeling poorly and I rushed him to the doctor, having been just waiting for his turn to develop strep. But he didn't have it, and the doc thought he just had a cold and sent us home.
After another day or so, Michael was still feeling horrible and we were beginning to suspect that something else was going on. He went back to the doctor who now decided we had a bacterial infection from raw milk. She gave Michael and stool sample kit and a second, more powerful antibiotic. He brought that home we sat and looked at it, and looked at each other. That didn't make sense, either; what we had was clearly contagious, not conveyed by contaminated food, since we were developing it in sequence. And it wasn't responding to antibiotics, which meant it was probably a virus. In fact, we decided it was probably the gastric virus that's been going around all our schools lately, and that we had just been fooled by its emergence after a cold (Agatha) and by the presence of strep (me) and by absence of vomiting in all of us. We all got off the antibiotics, canceled out of all our activities and obligations for two days, tried to keep to our beds as much as possible, and ate nothing but BRATY foods (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast, yogurt). It was slow progress, but every day we felt a little better. By now, about three weeks after it all started, we're all pretty much back to normal. Henry's the toughest of all of us: though he had it too, he never developed a fever or missed school or even complained much.
What a joy to feel healthy and energetic again! And what an intense relief to see the kids back to their normal, healthy, non-whiny, happy selves, too. Yesterday Henry had a big day: Michael picked him up from school early so that he could attend the printmaking demonstration that Michael and an artist colleague were doing with Michael's students. Henry's been getting really interested in printmaking and has carved his own wood block recently. Michael said he loved it and had to be restrained from being a know-it-all in front of the college students. Then the two of them went to a bowling birthday party. Meanwhile, Agatha and I had a girls' night at home: we ate toast with Nutella and (for the first time) watched a regular TV show together on the sofa-- an episode of "Glee." It's hard to put into words the joy of having such a daughter. She is my sweetest, dearest, most delightful companion.