Fever! In the morning. Fever all through the night.

Our fridge shelf at the moment. There’s more in the door.

I’ve never been a party to a nasal swab before. I pictured they’d shove something like an ear bud into his green gold mine and swirl it around.

“Nothing to worry about,” I told Master7. “Stick your finger up your nose. No, your pinky. Push it in. There you go. It’s going to be just like that.” I wasn’t even close.

One by one we’ve all been falling ill. First it was Master7 on Sunday, Miss8 and Miss2 Monday morning, Miss5 by Monday lunch – the teacher thought there might be a problem when my little girl fell asleep on the floor during class.

They’ve each been allotted some drugs and have been on a steady diet of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen. And here’s the thing while I’m on the topic of kid’s drugs, if they can make Charlie Sheen palatable surely they can do something with kid’s medicine. Quite aside from the prescription drugs, we’ve spent $120 at the chemist in two days because I keep buying the wrong flavours. FYI there is nothing berry-like about strawberry Panadol. Can’t they make a flavour kids actually like? They love those sour lollies. 

We somehow managed to scrape an appointment at the doctors for all four yesterday.

After a very thorough inspection of all four kids, the Doc asked for me to volunteer one of them for a nasal swab. I chose Master7 because he looked the most lethargic, so he’d be easier to hold down.

He was thrilled.

“I’m going to use Mishaela’s (Miss17) excuse and say I don’t want to,” he told me in no uncertain terms as we drove to the testing centre. 

Instead, the nurse pulled out a thin blue tube about two or three feet long. I had a moment when I worried she might be entering through his bum, because there was enough reach, and I hadn’t prepped him for that sort of intrusion. She then quickly measured roughly how far it was from his nose to his ear and then thrust it into his nostril and, given his reaction, directly into his brain.

“AaaaaAAAAHHHHHH!” he said.

“See. Just like your finger,” I said hopefully.

“It was not!”

“Well don’t tell your sisters. If you don’t scare them off when we get back to the car it can be their turn next time.”

Last night Tracey and I fell prey to this bug so it looks like the joy will just keep coming our way.

On the bright side, though, Master7 has already had the nasal swab so I won’t have to. What a trouper my little man is.

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1 Comment

  • I know some of how he feels. I had to have a swab for whooping cough last year.
    The nurse shoved something like a zip tie up the back of my nose and scraped while I had to sit on my hands. To say it was most unpleasant is an understatement.

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