Sick Enough For Home?

This isn't just a question of "can my kid go to school?" This is a question sick adults ask themselves about work. At what point are you too sick to go to school or work?

These are the obvious times you have to stay home:

1. Fever over 100 degrees until it's been broken for 24 hours.
2. Until 24 hours after vomiting from a stomach bug.
3. Until 24 hours after continuous "can't leave the bathroom" diarrhea.
4. Strep until 24 after starting the medication.

But, what if there is no fever? Just coughing and a runny nose? That has to be allergies or a cold, right? Colds have to be really bad in order to stay home.

But, how bad? We all assume if it's bad enough to stay home, we wouldn't even question if we should be home. For us, that's probably the case. For our kids, it's harder. Since we aren't feeling the symptoms and they aren't good at expressing the correct level of "how bad".

For me, I have two lists. The list above is the law. At least in NJ at this point in time. Below is my other list. The "it's not obvious what it is, but you can't go to school/work" list.

1. Flushed face
2. A few coughing fits
3. Non-stop runny nose
4. Non-stop stuffy nose
5. Looks really tired
6. Massive pounding headache
7. Very soar throat

If Zach has at least 3 - 5 of them, based on how severe, he shouldn't be around other kids. Frankly, adults shouldn't be at work either. But, not all parents can easily stay home when their child or themselves are sick. So, a lot of sick kids and adults go about their normal routine.

My guess is these are all things we all use as a "needs to be home" reference. The level of severity might be different. But, that's what sick looks like.

And that's when things get shaky. Sometimes, it's hard to tell how severe things are. Even in yourself. These are symptoms of a lot of things. How do you know it's just a bad cold?

You don't know until you go to a doctor. But, no one wants to go to a doctor and feel like they wasted money on the visit when the doctor declares it a cold! But, cold symptoms are also symptoms of more serious things. If you are having trouble getting out of bed for 24 hours, it's not a waste of money to see the doctor. Because even if it's a cold, it might save your life if it's something else!

I got thinking about this last week. Zach had four of those things from the second list. But, the severity was borderline. So we sent him to school. We let the nurse know to call if she thinks he should be home. He didn't even make it to lunchtime! 10:30ish - there's the call!!!

We should have kept him home that day. But, he had missed a couple of days of school prior and had seemed better. So we chanced it. What if I worked and neither of us would have been able to get him in the middle of the day? That would have been a harder decision. In this particular case, we probably would have just kept him home.

At 6am Zach was coughing today. Again he had 5 of those things. But, severity was hard to tell. I did the lunch today at his school. I knew I'd be in the school for at least 2 hours. So he went to school. When I arrived, the nurse said he hadn't been in. Within 2 minutes of me heading to the kitchen, he came in. He managed through lunch. I left early, him by my side. I'm glad he stayed, but I would have kept him home if I wasn't going to be at the school that day.

Strep throat. He saw a doctor this afternoon. But, it could have just been a cold. If I knew it was strep, he would have stayed home. But, it looked like a cold. When at school, his teacher confirmed strep is going around. His throat wasn't that bad this morning. But, with strep around, the test is worth it!

Suddenly, staying home for a "mild cold" doesn't sound so bad.