Sent Home Sick

Yesterday around 2:00 or 2:30 in the afternoon I had just finished up my team meeting, got back to my cube and ready to tackle the afternoon only to find an email from Cicely. She was letting me know that she had to go pick Zoey up from daycare because she had a temperature of 101.3°. Not that this is dangerous or anything but it's right on the cusp of when they will usually send them home just to be on the safe side.

With the norovirus going around they are being extremely cautious and anyone that shows signs of diarrhea, vomiting or a high temperature throws a flag up to the teachers. They then will call the parents and have them come pick there kids up to avoid spreading anything to all of the other kids and teachers.

The worst part though, is that once they are sent home they are required to stay out of school for a minimum of 72 hours. For us this means that Zoey cannot go back to school until next Monday which is five days away.

Because Cicely and I both had taken days off already this week either for DTO as I did to have one extra day for myself when I was sick, or her taking time to take care of Zoey when she was sent home, neither one of us are able to simply stay home with her for a full day as she needs. We will not take her to grandma and grandpas houses either, while that would allow us to go to work, it would do little more than spread the stuff around to everyone else.

So what we are doing instead is taking a half-day each to take care of her. I am taking the 'morning shift', working from home during that time. Then Cicely leaves work around noon, comes home and I leave to go to work while she then watches Zoey and works from home.

Once I get home in the evening, we just play it by ear, solely dependent on which one of us Zoey wants to be with at that time. More times than not, she wants to be snuggled and babied by Cicely. I mean who wouldn't? That is the same comfort I want and get when I am not feeling well. We just have to remember that and take good care of her when she is under the weather.

We are very fortunate that we are able to do this with our jobs. Most places it would be a total no-no to do so and we would look down upon as a slacker or problem employee. How screwed up is that I ask? Anymore with the amount of fair labor rights and other laws I don't see employers getting away with it, if they tried, I would surely fight it if I was in the right and not abusing the benefits or the system itself. Especially if reasonable accommodations had not been offered or made available. That is an entirely different post for another time though.

For now, it's time to focus on Zoey and get her through the next couple of days and on the road to recovery. She has a big party to go to this weekend to celebrate her aunt Danika graduating from college and hitting the real world full-time now, exciting stuff!

Photo: I was able to finish my Specialized Spring Classic Challenge last night, a final push of just over 25 miles put me in the 'success' side of the challenge. All said and done, I ended up with just over 1,225 kilometers or 761 miles. It would have been easier and more miles in the end had it not been for crappy weather, stomach bugs and days I was just not in the mood to put in a lot of miles because "I had to", it's never as much fun under those circumstances, for me anyway.