Attack of the Germs

In a matter of one week we have gone from being a healthy family to being one rather sick group of people! I think it was the snow again last week -- it brought back the germs!
It all started last week Sat. morning when I experienced some really intense chest pain accompanied by several other fun symptoms like shortness of breath and sweating. I assumed it was heartburn (the joys of getting older!) but was still rather shaken up by the incident. I ended up sleeping for several hours after the pain finally subsided and have remained rather tired and short of breath ever since. Since my family has a history of heart disease I thought it best to contact my doctor on Monday morning just to get her take on things. What I got was a stern lecture and directions to get myself to the emergency room immediately! I was teaching and had Abby and Jake to worry about so after climbing a snow hill (and falling in up to my waist!) and physically bringing a wayward student down from the top of the hill (all the while thinking that my doctor would kill me if she could see me now) I arranged to get my kids taken care of and left for the ER. My mother was kind enough to accompany me. I could not believe how busy they were there! Still, our wait was quite short. Heart concerns get things moving. They hooked me up to several machines and then did an EKG and promptly informed me (as if this was astonishing news) that I was not currently having a heart attack. Considering that I felt mostly fine except being a little tired and short of breath I was not real surprised. They took chest x-rays and did blood work and finally concluded that I appeared to be fine. Their best guess was that I had some sort of heartburn issue on Sat. and that I would be fine. They did order a stress test though just to be safe. So, four hours later (not bad for an ER visit) I was back home and anxious to have the whole incident behind me.
On Tuesday morning, Annika woke up with a croupy cough. Five kids had been out sick on Monday from her class and she was sure she needed to stay home. We pushed her to go to school and promised to come get her if she couldn't make it. She made it, which was good, since now we needed to deal with Jake. Jake had developed a diaper rash on Monday which seemed to be getting worse and worse despite our generous use of diaper rash cream. We attributed his rash and rather crabby nature to teething and assumed it would improve. By lunch time on Tuesday his little bottom was actually bleeding and he screamed bloody murder anytime we tried to touch it (poor guy!). I called the doctor and they had us take his temp. Since he had one we had to bring him in. It turns out his rash was infected and on top of that he has a bad ear infection too! That explains why he's been so crabby! So now Jake is on multiple meds.
In the meantime, Abby's cold is back. It looks like it may be another sinus infection (she had one a few weeks ago) as it is not clearing up. The child oozes green snot! We're just a real mess here.
On the bright side, I had my stress test today and everything looked great. My heart is healthy and doing everything is should. Unfortunately, I am still having breathing problems which seem to be getting progressively worse. My doctor has ordered a visit to the pulminologist and I am scheduled to go see her tomorrow morning in hopes that we can discover something before I go see a specialist. Let's all pray for warmer weather, more sunshine, and open windows to air out the germs! Our family needs the respite!