Paging Nurse Carli...

So, this weekend, our house was filled with sickness.  If discussing the bodily issues offends or disgusts you, please read no further.

Back in 2008, Murfy (our youngest furbaby) got an abcessed anal gland.  The poor little guy's rump swelled up because the gland was filled with puss and blood.  Several days later, the abcess ruptured and it took several days to heal up.  The vet had mentioned during this ailment that abcessed anal glands were not very common.  Fast forward about 16 months.  Well, apparently, after an initial abcess, scar tissue forms in the gland and repeat abcesses are common.  He began exhibiting the first symptoms of an abcess on Thursday evening.  The vet confirmed on Saturday morning that he was suffering from another abcess.  They sedated him and tried to drain it (to no avail).  They sent us home with antibiotics.  The area kept swelling and got quite painful.  Last night, as I was holding a hot compress on it, it came to a head and ruptured - all over my hand.  Grossness.  I had to go today to get him some additional pain meds.  He still isn't 100% back to normal, but he is getting a little better.  He still isn't eating (we are having to feed him baby food) and he was not sleeping.  He kept us up until about 4 this morning licking the area.  At least he seems to be resting comfortably right now.

My other patient this weekend has been my husband.  Saturday, he started saying he wasn't feeling so well.  By Saturday night, he was running a fever of almost 103 and had a really bad cough.  I made a call to the on call service and they called him in some Tam.iflu just in case it was the flu.  He is still running a fever today and coughing up some ugly brown plegm.  So, off to the doctor we went.  Apparently it is probably not the flu.  It is some nasty upper-respiratory virus that is going around.  And it has settled in his chest and he now has bronchitus.

So, with over half of my boys sick, I have been quite busy this weekend.  It seemed as if every time I turned around, it was time for someone to take medicine or someone needed water or someone needed some attention or someone got some gross substance on something and it needed washed (seriously, I think I washed the same blanket 3 times this weekend).  And between the middle of the night coughing and butt licking, I haven't gotten much sleep.

I didn't make it to work today because I knew that I was still needed around here.  And now, I am afraid I will not be making it in tomorrow.  Not because I will be needed by my patients, but because I might be a patient as well.  My legs have started aching and I am feeling feverish, I have had a headache and an itchy throat.  My temp hasn't spiked yet, so nothing is definite yet, but I guess time will tell.  If you don't hear from me for a few days, you all know why.

Thankfully, my MIL is a wonderful and kind woman.  She and my FIL are in GA for 3 months to escape the snow of the north.  She knows that Derek and Murfy are both sick.  Yesterday, they delivered some popsickles.  Today, she made lasagna and a salad and delivered it to our house so that I only had to stick it in the oven.  THANK YOU NANCY!!!

There was another event this weekend that I would like to post about, but I don't have the energy to do it right now.  I will fill you all in on that when I get the chance.