The First Day of School...or NOT

So after a somewhat stressful summer of trying to work from home with everyone here, I was secretly throwing a big fat "HOORAY EVERYONE'S GOING BACK TO SCHOOL/DAYCARE" party in my mind. Hip, Hip, HOORAY....or so I thought.



Tuesday came and I picked Peyton up from daycare to take her to preschool open house and our daycare provider mentioned Peyton hadn't seemed like herself. We'd noticed over the weekend that Peyton wasn't eating like she usually does and just seemed to be extra tired. I just figured our busy summer was catching up to her. Well off to preschool open house we went. As we got out of the car to go into school, Peyton said to me in a really sad voice, "Home, jammies on, sleep". This coming from the girl who would CRY every day at the end of summer preschool because she didn't want to come home with us when we went to pick her up. So that was a definite red flag. We did end up going in for the open house, but didn't stay real long because Peyton just wanted to hold my hand and lean against me the whole time...wasn't real into seeing the teacher, classmates, etc. As soon as we left I called the doctor to see if I could get her in.

At 1:45pm we headed to the doctor's office. By this time Peyton was so desperately wanting to go home and lay down she was almost in tears. She was running a temp and didn't look real good. They checked her out and did every test imaginable...strep test, urine analysis, bloodwork, the whole nine yards. After 2 hours of torture (including having to be jabbed with needles in both arms TWICE for the bloodwork), we were given a diagnosis. Mono. That's right. My sweet little thing has "the kissing disease". Oh, and if anyone feels like cracking a joke about "I didn't know she had a boyfriend" right about now - save it. I'm going to smack the next person who says that to me.

So, the past couple of days have been a real treat. During the day Peyton has seemed okay until about lunch time...then she gets real whiny and tired - but of course she doesn't want to sleep because we've been weaning her off of naps in preparation for afternoon preschool. At night she's very restless and is up multiple times crying. I think what it comes down to is she's exhausted, but is so uncomfortable she can't sleep. The doctor didn't prescribe any meds since mono is viral and can't be treated with antibiotics, she just said to give her tylenol/ibuprofen to keep her comfortable. We go back tomorrow morning at 9am to re-do the bloodwork so they can check Peyton's white blood cell count. Hopefully this time around getting blood drawn won't be such an ordeal like it was last time.

I've gotta say a special thank you to Grandma Julie for taking care of Peyton while I fulfilled an obligation for a client yesterday and today to work on-site for them. Probably not how you wanted to spend your birthday, watching The Wiggles and refilling a sippy cup, but we sure do appreciate your willingness to help out!

Hope everyone else has had a good start to their school year! Please keep Peyton (and the rest of us!) in your prayers that she'll get over this quickly...and also that no one else gets it. I'll keep ya posted as to when my little "party" can resume...and I'll post about how Peyton's first day of school went when that finally happens! Hopefully next week. We'll see. :-D