A New Beginning

After this last virus struck Jim and I did some brainstorming about what could possibly be causing this much illness in our family. Before May of 2010 I completely considered my kids some of the healthiest around. The boys had each only had 1 or 2 ear infections and beyond that we never needed to go to the pediatrician... no upper respitory illnesses, no stomach bugs, no coupe coughs. We honestly suffered none of the typical childhood illnesses beyond a few common colds.

And for whatever reason in May we got hit with our first stomach bug. From then we've had 1 anywhere from every 2 weeks to 2 months. We just had our 8th. INSANE. And beyond that, completely NOT normal for my family.

So ... we thought. What could it be? Are our kids prone to these? Possibly, but then why was June's first stomach bug when he was THREE years old. Wouldn't he have caught more when he was younger from play dates, etc? And why suddenly so frequent.

Here's what I'm thinking... I don't think it's something I'm doing or not doing in the house (cleaning) or even when we are out and about. I restrict playdates in Fall/Winter and use hand sanitizer often. So there are 2 things on my radar: the house, and the cat.

House: Could it be that there is something in the house that is causing the kids to get sick? I don't know. The only culprits that I can think of would be 1. Carbon Monoxide or 2. mold.
Carbon Monoxide is less likely bc if there was a leak we'd probably be a lot sicker than we've been and there wouldn't be "lags" in sickness and healthy, but I do intend to get a detector bc quite frankly, that would be good to have around anyway.
Mold... I don't know *any* information on mold but I do know that when our house was inspected, we declined a look at potential mold. So.. maybe it's a good idea to get our house looked at for potential mold.

Cat: This sounds crazy... you can't catch an illness from at cat, *but* animals can contract Salmonella along with other bacterias especially if they are outdoor cats like Jinx was. He was known to catch birds and mice and stuff, so it's really not all that far fetched. We've had a pee problem with Jinx too and recently I caught him peeing on the boys' blocks (all blocks were thrown away, no worries). In my mind, there is certainly the potential that Jinx was spreading a bacteria to the boys via the litter box. Gross gross gross, I know.

That brings me to the purpose of this post and it's title. Jim just dropped Jinx off at a shelter. As heartbreaking it was to feel like I failed him and failed as a proper pet owner, I'm so at peace with the fact that my house can stay clean and there is no worries about containments entering via a pet. So here's a new beginning... hopefully our health will return and "normal" life can start again, without the cloud of frequent stomach troubles.

Hopefully I'm not being naive and we are onto something with checking the house and placing Jinx elsewhere. Here's to a fresh start...