Close to Nowhere

Apparently, it’s going to run in the family. Being sick over the holidays is so much fun that oldest granddaughter Merideth, her Tim and their baby Shepard are going to continue the tradition.

Our holiday started this year with daughter Dana breaking her ankle. She slid on a sock one of her kittens had been playing with -- didn’t fall, just slid funny -- and she heard the ankle bones pop.

Baby Shepard was supposed to arrive around Dec. 23, but he couldn’t wait, arriving on Dec. 17.

Mom and Dad brought him back to the house after Christmas. We went there for Christmas, as an hour and a half in the car with a week-old baby in a car seat didn’t sound like fun.

New Year’s weekend found them at the house and planning a trip from our house to Mere’s dad’s house in Calhoun City. They noticed Shepard had fever, so on the way home they stopped at the emergency room in Oxford.

Shepard stayed four days. He was all right, just a urinary tract infection. Mom and Dad were nearly paralyzed with “new parent syndrome,” though.

Now, it was my turn. The horrible respiratory virus that’s going around stopped at our house. I coughed and coughed and sometimes, even though I’m much better, I find myself coughing some more. It’s really fun.

Youngest granddaughter Remy is rarely sick. She spent an entire year at 4-year-old kindergarten with strep or pneumonia and even had scarlet fever.

Since then, she’s rarely had more than a cold. Until the last week of school vacation after Christmas and New Year’s -- then she got sick again.

Her back has hurt for a couple of weeks now. Mom, being a nurse, always has many theories and solutions. She couldn’t figure this one out though.

It took a visit to the ER and a CT scan to discover that Remy had a really bad kidney infection. She spent about a week in the hospital. Her poor mom and her fellow Mitch were run ragged. I couldn’t help because I was still coughing and nurses frown on visitors in the hospital that are as sick as the patient.

Mere and Tim brought Shepard back this weekend.

Guess who couldn’t hold him because she’s still coughing like mad?

It’s kinda scary because we’re all better (or in my case, getting there). I guess it’ll be Valentine’s Day before we’re sick again.