Turn your virus protection on!

There hasn't been any new adoption news to report. The first several families are making their trips to Uzbekistan in the coming weeks. That's great news for them and hopefully the future of international adoption in Uzbekistan. On a selfish note, that also probably means no referrals for the foreseeable future. Our Uzbek coordinator is likely to be swamped with work considering all of the families, government officials and children she's going to be "coordinating". At this point, I don't see any way that we'll be bringing a child home this year.

As for the family update... if there's a virus or bacteria to be caught in Texas, our family has had it during the past month. I *thought* we were all almost healthy when Jonathan developed a bizarre rash. Since I hadn't seen that one before, I took him to urgent care. Turns out he had strep throat. After casually mentioning to the doc that we ALL were sick, we ALL got to come back and get tested for strep. I'm happy to report that all of us almost recovered folks were strep-free. HOWEVER, the rapid test that's given for strep is only 70% accurate. Given the fact that Mike is overseas and we were all sick anyway, the entire family was put on antibiotics. At that point the doc decided to check us all out just to be on the safe side. All of us "healthy" people ended up on an additional six prescriptions. There was one ear infection, one concerning cough and one of my lungs sounded like it might be headed towards bronchitis or pneumonia. I'm glad we didn't go to the doctor while we were actually "sick"... we might have all ended up in the hospital or something.

So, just about the time we all recover from round one, Sean gets the 18-24 hour bug that involves fatigue, high fever and vomiting. Matthew took his turn next and Jonathan & I are still drawing straws to see who goes next.