Sick day

It's fall and here in the castle, our allergies are going wild. We sneeze, we cough, and generally we sound awful, but at least we sound worse than we feel. A seemed fine when he got up this morning, coughing just a little more than yesterday so I gave him a dose of the cough suppressant / nasal decongestant before we left the house to wait for the bus.

The school nurse called around 9:30 to tell me that A was running a low grade fever, coughing, and complaining of a headache...and I needed to come and get him. Sigh - so much for running errands today. We got home and he immediately asked to eat a snack and watch television, in that order. We had to have the "how it is when you are home sick" talk; in other words, we don't play and watch television all day. I fixed him a snack of toast, then made him lie down for a rest. Funny, but until he climbed into bed for his rest, he had not coughed at all since I picked him up!

Since the school said he was constantly coughing but he has coughed only sporadically at home, I think one of three things happened. 1) A was coughing a little but quickly realized that coughing a lot would get him attention; 2) A coughed a little at first but as he coughed, he got hot, which caused him to cough more; or 3) the school overreacted. In regards to the last one, I know that many children are sent to school when they are sick, but rather than give A the time to relax and calm his coughing, they called me to get him. Last week they sent him home for having pink eye, which turned out to not be pink eye but just allergy-irritated eyes.

So while I appreciate that the school has a difficult job determining which children are truly ill, I hope that a pattern is not being established and that I will have to fight to convince them when he is fine. In the meantime, I need to make sure that he does not have too good of a time being home sick today!