Fun With Water

On Sunday we went to one of the churches we have been visiting. After the service they were going to serve lunch and have a giant slip & slide for the kids. They weren't kidding. It was HUGE!


They also had a small little pool out for the kids.


Rachel & Isaac ran right out to play. At one point in the afternoon I look down at Isaac, he has someone's dirty shoe and is filing it with water from the pool and then proceeds to drink it. Just in case you're wondering, no we are not supposed to drink the water here.

Today (Tuesday) we were taking a taxi to a friends house to let the kids play a bit. We are about 5 minutes from home, when Isaac begins to throw up all over the cab. I have to tell the guy to turn around b/c "sorry but my kid is yacking all over the place". The driver was very gracious, but it was disgusting. After helping the guy clean out his car, I go put Isaac in the bath. He's playing fine, and then leans down in the bath and starts lapping up the water... will he ever learn?!

NEGATIVE ON THE SWINE FLU

just in case anyone was worried

Look We Made the News!

Swine flu cases confirmed in UK
Nicola Sturgeon says the pair are recovering in a hospital in Airdrie

Two people admitted to a Scottish hospital after returning from a holiday in Mexico have been confirmed as the UK's first swine flu cases. Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said both individuals were recovering well in a Lanarkshire hospital from mild cases of the virus. It comes after Health Secretary Alan Johnson told the Commons 25 possible cases had been reported in the UK. Nine of those have proved negative, while 14 are still being investigated. Those 14 individuals were well enough to be managed in the community, Mr Johnson told MPs. The pair receiving treatment in Scotland are from Polmont, Falkirk.

***********to read whole article click above*************


Mexico suspected flu toll soars
Q&A: Swine flu
He added: "If a new pandemic does start as a result of this outbreak in Mexico and the United States, we can't make it go away, but what we can do through our plans, particularly our stockpiles of anti-virals, is mitigate its effect." Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it was "right that we put the issue of swine fever on the foreign ministers' agenda" because there needed to be "maximum European co-ordination" on the issue.
Agency procedures
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has a procedure for confirming whether or not a patient has swine flu. If a patient rings their GP or NHS Direct to report symptoms, they will be told to stay at home, not to visit a surgery or hospital. The HPA has prepared an "algorithm" - in essence, a flow chart - for suspected cases. On the phone, or possibly even face to face depending on the circumstances, the patient's GP or NHS Direct will take the patient through the algorithm. If the answers to the algorithm lead the questioner to believe the patient may have swine flu, a sample will be taken that will then be sent to one of the HPA's network of regional labs for testing. WE WERE NOT ASKED ANY QUESTIONS...ONLY ARE YOU FROM THE US?
If the sample is confirmed as influenza type A, it will then be sent to the HPA's Reference Lab at the Centre for Infections in Colindale, where they will carry out genetic typing on it and establish whether it is a confirmed case of swine flu.
There have also been cases of swine flu reported in Canada and a suspected case in France.

But I Just Wanted To See A Doctor!

Poor Levi has been sick for the past 9 days. It started out as a high fever (which he is very prone to get), but just seemed like a cold. He was eating fine, and the temp went down after 2 days. He seemed great, except for a cough. When we arrived here in England, Isaac started getting a runny nose and cough, but no temp. Again, he was overall acting normal, just a cold. Well 2 days ago, my mom and I came down with it as well. We had a really high temps., very sore throats, and bad coughing. Rachel woke up this morning saying her throat hurt as well. I finally decided to see if we could get in to see a doctor, since we leave Thursday for Uganda. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't turning into a nasty infection. My mom called her doctor, and they asked where we were from and that they would send someone out. Wow! I thought, how nice is that the doctor makes house calls! So much better then getting all three kids in the car to take them to the doctors. The doctor called on his way, and said that he would be wearing a mask, so tell the kids so they are not scared when he comes in.

About an hour later he arrived, comes in not only a mask, but a whole protective outfit. Had a plastic apron type thing, a mask, and of course gloves.


It finally clicks that he thinks we might have the swine flu.


He explained that since we were from America and there has been a breakout of the swine flu that he had to call Britain's form of the CDC, and they wanted to him to get samples from us. So he does a quick examination of us, says that he thinks we all just have a bad cold, but other than that we seem good. Then proceeds to pull out long Q-tips to take cultures, which Rachel sees and proceeds to freak out. I mean throws a HUGE fit. She is crying uncontrollably and hides behind a chair. She really doesn't like getting her throat swabbed. : ) I ask him if this is really necessary. He says if it were up to him, he wouldn't do it, b/c he's pretty sure we don't have it, but that since we are leaving we need to get it done. So we line up and get both our throats and noses swabbed. Never had my nosed swabbed before and I really hope I don't ever have to again.

Not quite the doctor visit I was planning on!