Great news, less than great news.

The great news is that Perry's covid-19 text came back negative. We kinda expected it, if only because it doesn't seem fair that you would have covid-19 and strep at the same time.

The less than stellar news is that his fever is still up, 104F -gulp- this morning, though it is going down without meds as he sits and drinks. We're on the phone now with the nurse line to find out of this is normal, but we're waiting for advice from the nurse line before having him take meds. I don't want a situation where they tell us bring him in and then ignore us because his fever is too low. See: Second ER visit with AC during the epidural abscess fiasco.

The person on the line said to call the doctor back, since after 48 hours his fever should not be that high.

Two things:

-- Perry often has very high fevers, at times unexplained. This one is (strep +) but his ability to have a high fever should never be underestimated. I had to take him to the ER twice for unexplained high fevers. (*)

-- Once we're back to more normal doctoring, I am going to insist he get tested to confirm his allergy to penicillin/amoxicillin. He had his first dose of abx at age 8 or so, and days after that developed a nasty rash all over. But this is Perry. Of high fevers and random rashes. So is he really allergic, or was it just a reaction to everything? The doctors have always said "just assume" but I think he needs to know. Because amoxi apparently works better for strep than a z-pack.

Anyhow, Perry is eating so he can take meds and then we'll call. Fever is a bit too high for want to wait.

(*) Funny Linnea story. Dh was at an amusement park with AC and a friend of hers, and Perry's fever spiked. I tried to call dh, but he'd left the cell phone in the car, because it was a water park. Sigh. Anyhow, I first took him to our family doctor. They freaked out when they were unable to get a BP on him, and because his fever was so high. To the ER. With a listless sick boyo, and a wild-child Linnea who was in one of her "I'm going to find a scalpel, steal it, and because I'm small, run around slash people's knee ligaments" moods. In the waiting room of the ER, she was all over the place, and Perry was a hot, whimpering rag in my lap. I did my best to contain her, and people were so awesome. She desperately wanted to get close to the big aquarium, but she was too short. I debated putting Perry down, and helping her, but then a BIG, and I mean BIG Black guy asked me if he could show her the fish. It was in full view, and he was laughing, and he helped her get a better view and played with her for a bit... I could have cried. Anyhow, he was called back, and Linnea came to sit with me, after I'd thanked him profusely. A dude came up to me and asked "Doyouknowwhothatwas?" and I'm like "no". It was apparently some well known Seahawk dude. I have no recollection of the name, because Perry was sick and I was scared, but even when I gripe about the Seahawks, I always remember that one of their players was a kind, compassionate human being.

ETA Virtual visit with an idiot doctor who didn't seem to understand that Perry is not an idiot, and didn't listen to what Perry was saying. End result, we have to go back to the respiratory/Covid clinic and for yet another covid test, the dude seems to think that it was a false negative. I am not convinced.

Well. Now I know...

I think I have a better idea of why this fucking pandemic is never going to fucking go away.

So. A negative covid test? Means pretty much zip. There are 30% of tests coming back negative when people actually fucking have covid.

That said, Perry had a combo of positive strep test and negative covid test. His throat hurts. He (apparently) has an ear infection. My suspicion is that he does not have covid, it would just be too weird. BUT since he had to be tested, we have to treat the test as positive and we're all in quarantine for 10 days.

The paper we got said 72 hours after last symptoms (which in his case would be fever not brought down by meds) but the doctor told us 10 days. EVEN if the next covid test comes back negative as well.

Which means that all the work I was supposed to do next week in lab can't happen and I have to toss a whole bunch of plates. My advisor is on vacay, so I can't even ask her to deal with them. Grr.

But that's neither here not there. The information is confusing and the paper is contradicting the verbal advice. That annoys me.

ETA Over the past two weeks, except for a socially distant hike on Sunday and rowing in the mornings, Perry has pretty much been with us the whole time. I mean, we all went camping together! The rowing set up is pretty safe. I have no idea where he could have gotten sick.

But BS. Tell me that everyone who has been tested and gotten a negative test remains in quarantine. And with 1/3 of negatives not really being negative... no wonder this thing is spreading.

Ugh.

That said, I was bad and went straight from the appointment to Costco. There is no way I can do 10 days with all four of us at home and not get a full shopping trip in.