Can I Get You a Kleenex?

In the last three years, we have been incredibly lucky where illnesses are concerned. The girls both had the flu, stomach and regular, while the Mister was deployed to Afghanistan. This hardly counts as anything though since the Murphy's Law of deployments is that if something is going to go wrong, it will go wrong during a deployment. Then, when the Mister got back from Afghanistan, he brought some sort of virus with him that he and I had for a week or so. That was fun. Yup. Other than that, the girls have only had minor things that didn't last longer than 24 hours. Compared to all of my friends and family on Facebook and their kids that seem like they come down with something every other week, we're a pretty healthy bunch.

About a year ago, the Oldest child seemed to be getting constant colds that were too frequent and lasted too long. She also complained that her eyelashes were driving her nuts and that she wanted to pull them out. I thought she was going insane. Turns out that she developed seasonal allergies. Her doctor told her to take over the counter Allegra which seemed to do the trick for about six months. Now her allergies have evolved from just being seasonal to including pet dander as well. Great. Fun times.

THEN, about three weeks ago, the Youngest child came down with what we figured was a cold. Coughing, sneezing, stuffy, congestion. You know. We poured over the counters down her throat and after about a week, she seemed to be getting better. Then, two days later, she started coughing incessantly with sneezing with a stuffy nose. So, we bought more over the counters. This time, nothing seemed to help. The fact that the Mister and I didn't come down with anything was also a clue that maybe something other than a cold was going on here.

Today, I took both of the girls to the doctor's. I'm telling you what. All the constant coughing, sniffling, sneezing, and hacking is really starting to grate on my nerves. I know they can't help it but, GEEZ! The doctor changed up Morgan's meds and said that she might have to add either a nose spray, inhaler, or both if the new prescription doesn't help. He diagnosed the Youngest with allergies as well. She's on Allegra and an inhaler. Seeing as how Tricare is doing their damndest not to pay for anything anymore (and I think we actually have United Health Care now because we, meaning military families, are being pawned off), we spent a crapton at the drugstore on allergy medications tonight.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have to play around too much with their medications. The Youngest has to be reevaluated in two weeks because of the inhaler. She was relieved when I told her she didn't have to take it to school because she didn't want to be made fun of for having it. How sad is that?? Mean kids suck. Allergies suck. Long car rides with two sniffling and coughing kids suck. Just saying.