A Pox on Our House!

Okay, well not really a "pox," but sickness has descended.  Started off with nasty, nasty colds for Steve and Samantha that never really went away.  Which then changed to a fever for the little one and a sore throat for Daddy.  Which got diagnosed yesterday at Urgent Care as strep.  And quite a serious case for him, unfortunately. 

I'm not sure how we should feel about our Wednesday night sick appointment at Samantha's pediatrician's office.  Steve wants to call and give them a mouthful.  It's a large practice, so we don't often get to see her regular doctor (who we love), and the doctors that cover the evening sick cases are truly a random luck-of-the-draw.  Wednesday night it was a visiting doctor, whose name I don't recall, from their sister office in another town.  She was nice enough, and we explained that Samantha had had a fever all day, going up to as high as 101-something.  Now, Sammi almost never gets fevers.  She's just not one of those kids.  She went through teething, including all of her molars, without so much as a whimper, a speck of drool or a spike in temperature.  She's had ear infections with no symptoms other than a whole lot of whining.  And the list goes on.  Not to say she's never had one, but just saying they're rare.  Anyway, the doctor listened to her heart, looked in her nose, ears and mouth (briefly) and declared that her throat was red, and that she must have a strain of the virus that causes hand-foot-mouth disease, and that there's nothing that can be taken for it.  She said she'd be fine in a few days.

So we left.

Samantha seemed to start to feel better, and her temperature seemed to return to normal by Thursday afternoon.  We're now questioning the battery life of our little temporal thermometer, but she definitely didn't feel hot to the touch anymore.  Steve, on the other hand, got worse and worse, barely able to get out of bed.  On Sunday he drove himself to Urgent Care and reported back that he had a particularly bad case of strep.  The doctor at the center suggested that he get Samantha in for a strep test asap, and the rest is history (incidentally, her temperature registered 100-point-something there, further leading us to believe that we may need to change some batteries...). 

I, on the other hand, tested negative and have never felt better!  LOL 

Should we be annoyed that the pediatrician's office never even mentioned strep or thought to suggest a strep test?  Wouldn't a red throat lead to some further investigation on their part?  Perhaps they would have then spotted the rash she was developing on her arms and torso (which we had not yet discovered).  I think I'm annoyed.  Not like I think medical professionals should be perfect in all diagnoses, because I'm sure they're not, but given a preschool-aged child, a red throat, a fever, and a season conducive to that sort of illness, I'd think they should have checked. 

I am very, very thankful, though, that Steve's strep drove him to visit the clinic.  He had thought it was laryngitis, as he was also losing his voice (lo and behold, the doctor said it was strep-induced laryngitis!), and were it not for the unending pain, he would have waited it out.  Samantha had seemed better and we thought that whatever she had had passed (other than the snot pouring from her nose continuously, which I'm not sure was related or not)  Strep apparently can seem to go away on its own, but actually does some pretty nasty things to the body, especially in children. 

Yes, very, very thankful...