Health?

Before this year, I could count the times I took the the kids to the doctor for anything other than well-child checkups on my fingers. Seriously. In almost 8 years and 5 kids, we've not had much go wrong.


Apparently the fates have realized things were unbalanced in our favor, and we're making up for it now.

In the first 4 months of 2009, I have been to the doctor with one kid or another almost every week--and sometimes twice a week.

We've had:

A new baby
A few well-child checkups
A couple of catch-up-on-shots visits and the accompanying week of torture after
SEVEN cases of RSV on seven different people
Bronchiolitis (in the newborn, so it came with a bunch of visits)
FOUR middle-ear infections in two children (and two of those infections won't go away after 3 courses of antibiotics)--and we'd never had this before ever
One ear canal infection
One new prescription for eyeglasses and the accompanying glasses purchase
Allergic nasal rhinitis (stuffy nose due to hay fever) in one of the kids
Several colds each (which didn't go to the doctor)
Disappearance and the reappearance with a vengeance Eczema
TWO plastic surgeries on two different little boys' private parts--and the accompanying preop and postop visits
A massive yeast infection (in one of the boys, no less!)
Diagnosis with a major, untreatable and incurable sleep disorder
And your usual assortment of bumps, bruises, scrapes, punctures, sports injuries, head bangs, and cat scratches that kids always come in with.

Oh, and our usual, everyday fibromyalgia and ADD that are just part of the background in our lives.

Anda is the only one who hasn't had a doctor visit yet, and that's only because I haven't found a week for her annual checkup yet that didn't have another appointment already scheduled.

On top of all that, we lived on tour for a month (while we had RSV) and, in addition to that month, Tim has been out of state working I think 8 or 9 times. So far. More to come.

So when the doctor asked me why I hadn't taken the kids all to the dentist yet, I nearly hit him.

I mean, that would open a whole nother bag of worms. Giant, flesh-eating worms, most likely, since all of the kids need dental work, not just a cleaning.