You give me fever...

Scarlet fever? Are you serious?

Well, thank God that during last month's Kawasaki Disease scare I had a chance to read about scarlet fever. My association had previously been that Laura Ingalls' sister, Mary, went blind after contracting scarlet fever. (Interestingly, this happened in between books 4 and 5 and was just matter-of-factly mentioned at the beginning of By the Shores of Silver Lake. "Yeah, Mary's blind now." Wierd.)

Turns out scarlet fever is essentially strep throat that involves a rash due to the toxins of the bacteria. It's still effectively treated by amoxicillin, the ubiquitous pink stuff in the fridge that we all used when WE were kids, and thankfully it will also treat the otitis media that she developed as a complication. Poor kid never gets ear infections and that one came as a total surprise to me.

I am frustrated that once again I couldn't get her into the military clinic we're assigned to. I always had this problem at Hickam AFB, given that there were two pediatricians for the gazillion kids running around that place (we military families procreate like bunnies). There are certain things for which a child does indeed need to be seen that day, and scarlet fever is one of them. There were no appointments available, none coming open, and I didn't hear from the nurse consult who might have been able to open one up. I was advised that we could go to a civilian emergency department to be seen. Huh?

I'm pretty old-school about stuff like this. The ER is for emergencies--you know, something involving not breathing or severed limbs. I loathe tying up those types of resources for something that is not a bona fide emergency, knowing the same care is costing several times more than it would at a regular clinic. Add to that the fact that you sit in a germ-ridden environment with a very sick child for multiple hours and it's a lose-lose proposition. But if that is the only way I have to get care for my daughter, then it's something about which I have no choice. I just can't stand contributing to the health care crisis.

Honestly, though, I've had enough of illness. Since we first arrived back on the mainland in late October:

1) Emily got sick in Nashville (upper respiratory gunk). Conveniently, we were staying with her Uncle Jim, who is a pediatrician. Life is good sometimes.

2) Then she started vomiting while driving from Nashville to Atlanta. But we stayed with Gramma, who is a nurse. Life is good again. Much, much vomiting the morning we were supposed to leave for Langley again. Yikes.

3) Around Thanksgiving, she started getting sick with something that morphed every time we thought we had a handle on it. Cough, then respiratory, then strep-looking throat, HIGH fever barely controlled, mouth sores, vomiting, swollen gums, and so forth. Unbelievable. At the third visit to the ped office (at which we'd asked to see a different doctor), a very concerned doc called for an ambulance to bring us down to Portsmouth Naval Hospital to test for Kawasaki Disease. Bless him, he spent about an hour and a half on the phone with Infectious Disease in San Antonio (suspected measles) and the pediatric cardiologist in Portsmouth. No definitive diagnosis, but she eventually recovered after a long few weeks.

4) Then John got pneumonia.

5) And I got bronchitis.

6) And Papa wound up getting quite sick while here for Christmas. Oddly, my mother was the healthiest one in the house.

7) Then I started throwing up last week.

8) And now scarlet fever (strep), and a tertiary ear infection. And Emily was so pleasant that we had no sign that anything was really wrong until she started vomiting during the Steelers game.

I'm honestly about to boil everyone and everything in the house. It's disturbing to have this all going on, although with the move to a different geographic location and Emily's sudden exposure to lots of new people at church and the YMCA, I realize it's not completely unreasonable. But it is tiresome and enough to make an exhausted mama a little paranoid.

Despite my occasional frustrations with military health care, however, I am grateful beyond words that we have access to doctors and medication. There are so many mothers out there who don't have the options I do, and I praise God for providing a career for my husband that allows for this and thank my husband for working so hard to provide for his family.

Off to snuggle my feverish little pumpkin.