Cooties

My kids either have or have been exposed to various forms of cooties in the past week and a half. First up: the note saying there have been two cases of head lice in the other VPK class, so check your child’s head. Those kids do share playground time and afternoon time with Alex’s class. I arrived that day as Alex’s teacher was glove-handedly going through the kids’ hair on the playground. Alex was all clean, thankfully, and so far as I can tell has stayed that way. Cooties Crisis #1 averted so far.

Then came Cooties Crisis #2. About a week ago Saturday, Nate sprouted an odd round rash on his face. My first thought — and I wonder, how the heck do I even know this? — was ringworm. Ick. I asked Dr. Google, who seemed to agree with my diagnosis, and assured me that at least ringworm is just a little fungus and not really a worm at all. Somehow, that makes it a bit more palletable. Dr. Sears (via Dr. Google) said to treat it with over the counter Lotrimin because even if I was wrong I wouldn’t do any harm. I started doing that. On Monday, Nate had mystery fever #3 (he was on day 8 of antibiotics due to the ear infection that had caused mystery fevers one and two) so I decided to take him to the doctor on Tuesday just to be sure he could go back to school and also to get that face looked at. Ears: clear. Fever: a mystery. Face: Ringworm. We are now doing prescription-strength antifungal and just hoping that it fades before Aunt Katie’s wedding. Even though it is highly contageous without treatment, we got clearance for him to go back to school, covering the welt with a band-aid. Luckily, he does not seem to have inherited my strong sensitivity to band-aids, and they aren’ t leaving their own welts.

On to Cooties Crisis #3: When I picked the boys up on Friday, there was a sign on the door to Alex’s classroom and the main area stating that one of the kids in Alex’s class was diagnosed with viral meningitis. And that the child did not have a fever, the only symptom was a headache. Now, the word menengitis is just scary in general. But less than a week ago, a USF student died of bacterial meningitis. And the copy of the newspaper with that poor 19 year old innocent face staring out at us was on our kitchen counter for several days. So the word meningitis really scared the bejesus out of me. Alex’s classmate’s case is very mild, and we have been assured that it is the bacterial one, not the viral one, that is so deadly. Still, I was hyper sensitive to any indication that either kiddo might be less than 100% this weekend. So far, so good.