Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Fires and Fevers

Yesterday my car was covered in fine ash.  Everything outside had this layer of ash on it.  Then I discovered it inside as well.  Inside the car because I left my windows cracked all night.  Inside the house because we had the windows open, and the whole house fan on, all night.  

This is why ...

The fires in the mountains are blowing down into the valley.  It's been the theme of this summer it seems.  We get the smoke, the terrible air quality and sometimes even the ash.  

Hubby and I were living in the Bay Area back in 1991 when the fires destroyed the Oakland and Berkeley hills.  I will never forget the smell of that smoke.  

For someone who has had asthma my entire life, I'm truly amazed I haven't been bothered by this terrible air quality.  I can only credit my better immune system with keeping my asthma at bay.  (another post for another time to elaborate on that)

My kids have been amazingly healthy the last few years.  But every once and awhile something hits them and knocks them out for a day or two.  

Today is day 2 for my son.  He started a fever yesterday.  It got so high today that he even had an episode of hallucinating!  Of course this scared the pants off of me.  He didn't know who I was and thought "they" were coming to get him.  We still don't know who "they" are.  We got his fever down as fast as we could and he was back to normal.  He doesn't remember any of it. 

I remember having such a high fever once as a kid that I saw little green men jumping on my parent's bed.  My dad walked into the room to check on me and he looked to be only about 3 feet tall.  I could see vines growing on the bedroom walls.  It was pretty trippy!

Now my son is doing much better.  No fever at all for the last 4 hours.  He's pretty tired, but definitely on the road to recovery.  He should be pretty close to back-to-normal by tomorrow I predict. 

Unfortunately, it has now hit my 3-year old, right at dinner time.  She suddenly slowed down and got quiet, which doesn't happen often.  We felt her face and sure enough ... HOT!  So here we go with the 2nd kid.  Praying it doesn't hit my oldest, or me or hubby, next.  

Sadly, I had to cancel my Shakespeare class for tomorrow.  Can't risk getting the students sick too.  Wouldn't all those parents be happy?  I'm bummed to have to skip the class though.  I had some really great stuff lined up!  Oh well, we'll get to it next week.  

Meanwhile, I'm off to fight fevers ... 

  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hope you guys are better now! We haven't had any ash falling from the sky, thank goodness.