Irish Flu

Caitlin is still learning to share. Unfortunately the first thing she decided to share was her germs. I have the awful flu she had last week. It is pretty much miserable.

I sent the Irishman to the 'chemist' yesterday to pick up some cough medicine for me. I gave him very specific directions about which one to get. For reasons I won't go into, they would not sell him any cough medicine unless I'd been seen by a doctor. Great.

We tried calling the local healthline, but that led to an appointment at the local urgent care center. The very nice doctor said it is most likely viral. I have the flu and I just have to wait it out. My cough was outrageous, so I did get a prescription for some cough medicine, but the "chemist" looked at the list I'd written down of the over the counter medicines I was used to from the States and she sold me a bottle of that instead. Translation? We paid 68 euros for a diagnosis of flu and a bottle of Robitussin.

I've spent the day in bed fighting a cough and fever. I am finally starting to feel human again. Morgan, Caitlin, and I are sharing a room. I was a mess at 5am and moved into the front room instead. I was spending all my energy trying not to cough and wake Caitlin, so sleep was not going to happen. I missed the cousin's birthday party this afternoon, but the Irishman took lots of pictures for me.

We had a lovely Christmas. The snow stayed on the ground and Caitlin was well enough to go out and play a bit. We surprised Morgan's parents with a new laptop that we snagged during Black Friday sales. We are not good at surprises, so we were thrilled that we managed to pull it all off! I was so out of it this afternoon that I could not figure out how to open the laptop. I blame the fever on for that one! I will try to upload some pictures tomorrow. For now I have a family snapshot taken on Christmas night in front of the very-distinctive Christmas tree. We've joked that the top of the tree is a tribute to the Florida palm. They actually cut the tree down from the garden so it is home grown...with character!

For now we are going to work on NOT sharing these germs...