It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Mono

For the past several years, Charlotte's immune system has been a thing of wonder. She hardly gets sick, and when she does, she uses whatever special juju her body has and fights off the illness usually within a matter of hours. So when she came down with strep in early December, we thought she'd be back to business before we knew it.

With nurse Bella.

But then she didn't get any better, and then she woke up with a rash. A trip to urgent care resulted in a a amoxicillin allergy diagnosis. Something about that didn't seem quite right, and the rash got worse, so we saw a nurse practitioner at our pediatrician's office.

Almost immediately she wanted to test for mono, and the test came back positive. The rash was a reaction that can happen when someone who has mono is given amoxicillin. And the rash continued to get worse...

It hurt and it itched and I mean, it covered her entire body. She was miserable and I could hardly look at her without wanting to cry. She was super tough and did not complain once. Even though at this point it was barely mid-December, our Christmas vacation and actual Christmas were quite lacking. We missed out on a lot: caroling with friends, Charlotte's Christmas party at school, church service on Christmas Eve, you name it and we pretty much missed it.

The dreaded Hatchimal.

We still managed to have a nice Christmas Day opening gifts and spending time with family. The kids got to shop at school at a little fundraiser, and they each enjoyed making their shopping list...

...and presenting their gifts to their recipients. They were so proud of what they picked out; it was so sweet. 

The volunteer at school got a kick out of the fact that J addressed his gift to "Sir".

So proud of his Super Grandpa hat. And still sporting his cast.

I wound up with two identical "Most Beautiful Mom" mugs that I couldn't love more. :)

In addition from feeling yucky from the mono, Charlotte's immune system is still not back to where it usually is. She has gotten a couple stomach bugs and had a few days where she was just exhausted. She gets a vial of blood taken every two weeks (and has gotten to where she's not bothered by doing it at all). As of today it's March 1st and we are just hoping that this dreaded mono is gone by Spring.

And finally, our Shelton kid pic from Christmas 2016...