Rough sick winter

We were doing so good this winter until the middle of January and then we all got it good.  It started with everyone getting the 24 hour flu.   Luckily everyone but me got it on a friday night and saturday.   I didn't get it until monday right at 5 pm when my husband got home.   So really it worked out pretty well if we were going to get it.    Then that week the kids started with runny noses and a cough.   I figured Sawyer was getting an ear infection and so I put silver in his ears and he seemed to be a little better.   The other two just kept coughing and coughing.  I figured it was the cold that the cough just lingered for ever.  Finally one night my daughter asked me if she could go to the dr.  I said ok well go.   I had been trying to avoid going to the dr because they just give you antibiotics and I didn't want that.
I give my kids probiotics and elderberry everyday.  I figured that this would help keep everything away and if they did get something it would make it go away faster.   Turns out she had strep and sawyer had an ear infection still.  So I got the antibiotics because she had already missed quite a few days of school.

Fast forward a few days I came down with something terrible.  My whole body was sore and achy.  It was bad.  My throat hurt so bad I figured I had gotten strep from her.  I was gargling silver and drinking a ton.   We were also drinking hot lemon and honey tea.   I finally decided to go in and get tested for strep...... big fat NO!  ok well now I know its just a viral thing that will take a few days to go away.    So I kept taking my garlic and vit c and doing the silver gargle.   It did go away faster than the last viral thing I got in October.  So that was nice.  

  The kids still were coughing pretty bad a week later  and my oldest was sleeping so much.  She would come home from school and take a 2-3 hour nap and then sleep at night fine too.  This was not normal so I took them back in and dr said they just have the viral cold on top of recovering from strep.   OH MY!!!
By this point it had been a month of us being sick...... I was so sick of being sick.....
I was frustrated by now because we had been so good at doing all of the preventable stuff.   Using the oils and taking all of the extra probiotics and everything.    We shouldn't have gotten sick and stayed sick for a month.    I know that so much sickness was going around everywhere and having kids in school makes it worse because they get so much from school.    I know we need to improve our washing hands with the kids and I know that is part of it.  We have started to sing a song while we wash our hands, to make sure they are washing for long enough.  I know this will help.

We are all doing better now.  I am pretty sure sawyer still has a little ear infection because his nose is runny again.  I just can't get him to lay down for a few minutes to let the silver do its work.   I need to try it when he is asleep.  It made me want to research out more about how to prevent and be proactive about not getting sick next winter.   I have already found quite a few things that we can add to our preventative list.   I know we still did pretty good for not getting little colds here and there we just had major stuff for a month.  So I guess that is a plus.   Its a learning process and I am learning all sorts of new stuff that I can start applying and using now.  I guess its the struggles that make you grow and force you to learn more.