To All the Germs I've Loved Before...

"who've traveled in and out my door..."

Do you ever feel like your family is in the cross-hairs of some vindictive bacteria crime syndicate? That each time you step outside your house (or maybe it's each time we step INSIDE our house), another loved one gets "offed" by the nasty buggers? Well, I'm about to go all Elliott Ness on their a##es with a can of Lysol and some Clorox...

Week the first: It started at Boy Wonder's birthday party a few weeks ago. Two days after swimming in the Alaska Club pool and climbing all over the Alaska Club rock wall, poor little Boo wanders out from his nap with one crusty, gnarly looking eye. By the next morning, both eyes are filled with goo and we're sitting at the urgent care clinic discussing bacterial conjunctivitis. Ewww. Seven days worth of stinging, smelly drops later, we seem to be OK. Well, other than Boy Wonder conveniently announcing to the entire crowded Old Navy store (on Christmas Eve) that "My baby brother has the gross pink eye!" This, after Boo has already wandered up and down the aisles man-handling the merchandise and touching every debit pin machine in the store. I gave a non-committal shrug and a weak smile and threatened the first grader's life in a low voice as we left the store. Snitch! (Yes, he takes after me...)

Week the second: P has an "ingrown hair" on his arm. He squeezes the CRAP outta the thing and within 15 minutes, his entire forearm and wrist have doubled in size and grown angry (pissed off!) red. Oh. Holy. Sh^%. In a house with two parents who do jiu jitsu and a dad who has wrestled since he could put a singlet on by himself, those types of reactions don't bode well so P jumps in his truck and gets the beasty-looking thing checked out. Hello, Staph!! Ten doses of cephalexin later, and we don't have to amputate his arm or build a shed in the back for him to sleep in. Yay! P can stay with the family with all his limbs in tact! Yay!

Week the present: It started out when Anchorage decided to melt all its snow and ice in a freak temperature drop this weekend. I wake up Monday with a stuffed nose and the inability to swallow anything solid. Great. By night, I'm trying to beat my children to bed at 7 p.m. and I'm colder than a Puffin in the Arctic. (I don't know if Puffins get cold. I just think they're cute.) Then I'm hot. Then I'm crying because my bones hurt whenever someone else breathes. (Stop breathing upstairs, dammit! You're hurting my back!) By Tuesday, I'm so doped up I think I'm fine until 4 p.m. hits and I can swallow, breath, or sit because the couch cushions are too hard and the noise from the television is making my leg cramp. One visit to our favorite urgent-care clinic (Hello again, Dr. Kilkenny! Have you named the new wing after our family yet?) and one giant Q-tip down the throat later and I have strep. Hooray for my long-time nemesis, group A beta-hemolytic streptococcus--the bane of my sick existence since I was 8-years-old. (Oh, how I miss the good ol' days...the blissful gland-yanking times before removing tonsils became faux pas...take mine, really. No, please take my damn tonsils.)

After a z-pack, a pot of Matzo ball soup, three gallons of gatorade, and a big ol' bottle of Tylenol, things are looking better. Not sure I'll tell P just how much better because I really, really love the concern and constant babying. But I'm definitely not in tears at the drop of the hat and my sense of smell and taste are returning. Hurrah!

You'll notice in this narrative how Boy Wonder has somehow gotten through unscathed, despite hosting the birthday party that started the bacteria festival rolling around here.

Ironic, right?

After last year's bout with Fifth Disease, he has earned his "get out the sick house free" card, but knowing our luck, the kid will have bronchitis before the week is out.

Here's hoping things are less germ-y where you are...and God Bless this wonderful, itchy, sneezy petri-dish of a home we have!