'We're Living in Virus Hell.' Adults, Parents, Kids [View all]

Last edited Sat Dec 10, 2022, 08:26 PM - Edit history (1)

- 'We’re living in virus hell. The kids are sick. The parents are not well. Wasn’t this year supposed to be easier?'Washington Post, Dec. 9, 2022.

The first positive coronavirus test in our household occurred Oct. 26, and in the beginning, we were fools who believed it might be over fast — my husband was quarantined in the basement; perhaps the rest of us would be spared. Five days later, I tested positive. Then our preschool-aged daughter did. Then our toddler was diagnosed with RSV, which devolved into a terrible cough, which turned out to be pneumonia.

After 20 days trapped at home together, during which time my children started referring to their Pedialyte ice pops as “ice lollies” because they’d watched 4,000 episodes of “Peppa Pig,” my son at last returned to day care. He lasted two entire days before contracting a new virus, this one accompanied by the sudden appearance of hideous red welts all over his body, which sent him to urgent care just before midnight. Over three weeks, we’d gone from bad to worse to biblical.

Wasn’t this year supposed to be better? (Or was that just something we told ourselves as we limped toward the fading mirage of normalcy?) Instead, the onslaught of viruses this fall has been so monstrous and relentless that it seems like every parent I know — friends, colleagues, neighbors, everyone — has a story to tell. These are not nice stories. These are stories narrated in a distinctly fatigued-yet-frantic tone, and they always feature specific, memorized numbers: The precise degree of a fever, the tally of missed days of school and work, the frequency of visits to the pediatrician or urgent care or the emergency room.

I have a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old who started kindergarten and third grade, respectively, the first week of September,” says Alexis McGrath of Parsippany, N.J., who described her family’s experience by email. “Since then, there literally hasn’t been a single week when at least two of us haven’t been home sick.” So far, the siege has spanned three upper-respiratory infections, numerous high fevers, relentless congestion and two confirmed cases of pinkeye, she says. “I. AM. SO. TIRED.”..

- Read More, https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/09/parents-children-virus-sick/