Sofia Turns 5, Ray gets Swine Flu

Sofia turned five yesterday. As usual, she has been awaiting this day with much anticipation. Since we usually don't celebrate her birthday until the following weekend, in past years, we haven't told her it's her birthday until the day of the party to avoid confusion. This year, however, I didn't think I would be able to get away with that because I knew her class was doing a spotlight on her on the very day of her birthday. So I went ahead and told her the night before, that Wednesday was her birthday and she would finally be turning five. She was very excited. I told her that her class would be doing something for her but that her party would be a few days away. At first she was a bit unsure of this arrangement but she seemed to understand and be fine with it.


After her school spotlight, on the way home, she asked if there would be a cake waiting for her. I guess, she hadn't understood as well as I thought. I had to explain the whole celebration party thing again and although not too happy, she finally was OK with it.
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Sadly, two days before, Ray had started complaining of a sore throat. Because both he and I had already suffered from a cold just a couple of weeks ago which he had passed on to me, I decided to be extra cautious and make him sleep in the guest room. The next day, Tuesday, it was clear he was suffering from the flu -runny nose, congestion, shivers, sweats, etc. He didn't have a fever, but that was probably masked by the cocktail of Airborne, Dayquil, and Tylenol he had been taking. Again, he slept in the guest bedroom.

By Wednesday morning, his condition had only gotten worse. I knew it was a bad sign, when I woke up around 7:00am to get Sofia ready for school and he was not in the office working. He hadn't even gotten out of bed. There was coughing, more head congestion, and general disorientation (more so than usual). By the time I got back with Sofia from her school, he had headed out to the Urgent Care office. They confirmed via the rapid test that he most likely had H1N1 with the positive result for type A influenza.

Although, the Tamiflu antiviral medicine is being saved for high risk groups which he is not in, he did receive a prescription as well as a preventative prescription for me due to the fact that I am in a high risk group. Not wanting to take the medicine unless absolutely necessary*, I called around the whole state of Utah until I finally found somewhere where Ray could go to have the definitive rRT-PCR Swine Flu test done. Not an easy task. At first, I was told by the Health Department that it was only available to patients that were already hospitalized. They certainly aren't advertising the availability of the test, but it finally turned out, that he was able to go to the nearest hospital in American Fork and have it done. Unfortunately, he was told that despite the normal four hour wait for the results, due to the heavy volume of tests being processed, he would get a response within 48 hours.

That certainly doesn't help me since the effectiveness of the Tamiflu drug depends on commencing it's use within the first 48 hours of infection. Ray started his treatment yesterday as well as a round of antibiotics for his sinus infection. I'm still playing the wait and see game. As for the kids, hopefully, they won't get sick as I've already been told by the pediatrician's office that they would not be eligible to receive treatment as they are not in a high risk group (children under 2 only).

Ironically, just one day before this started, I had been calling around to find out where we could get the flu shots only to find that both shots, seasonal and H1N1, are not available anywhere for the time being. So none of us are immunized.
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So, this morning, I had to break it to Sofia that we would have to postpone her party until Daddy gets better and we can make sure that none of us are infected nor contagious. That was a much harder pill for her to swallow. I'm sure I'll have to keep having this conversation each day with her. What a sucky fifth birthday, especially for a little girl who's favorite thing in the world is birthdays.