Strep Throat in Paradise

Our family enjoyed a beautiful week in Florida last month.  We look forward to this time away all year long!

Unfortunately this year we took along a wretched stowaway.

On our drive down Abby got very sick.  While spending the night in a hotel room we stayed up with her half the night treating her fever and watching her have one seizure after another (12 total).  Desperately trying to avoid an emergency hospital run in a strange city, we gave Diastat (her emergency seizure med).  After the Diastat and an extra dose of her regular meds she finally fell asleep around 7 am.

She and I slept for a few hours.  After a shower I was feeling optimistic, so we loaded Abby up with meds, and the car with our many bags and headed towards our final destination.  About 30 minutes into the trip Abby started seizing again.  After the 7th seizure we called her neurologist b/c we had used up all of our available options.


We stayed another night in a hotel very close to a large hospital, gave Abby the newly ordered meds and waited to see what would happen.  Fortunately, despite her fever, Abby was able to rest through the night with no more seizures.

In the mean time I was feeling lousy, thinking it was from a lack of sleep.  By Monday I had a fever and was pretty miserable with a very sore throat.  Thankfully after a trip to a Doc-in-the-box, I had antibiotics for strep throat.  Knowing Abby's symptoms closely resembled mine, Patrick took the kids to the same doc, where Abby and Josiah both got antibiotics for strep.

The rest of the week was spent resting, trying to swallow food, playing on the beach and enjoying time with family.  The guys went fishing, the kids went swimming, I got to read more than I have in the past year and I had a gorgeous view from our bedroom window which was a nice treat!

I was really thankful to have gotten sick, otherwise we might not have known Abby needed antibiotics to get well.  She would have been miserable the whole week.

Our last night we got to sit by a bonfire, roasting marshmallows and enjoying each other's company.  Perfect way to end our vacation!