QUIZ: Which Winter Illness Does Your Child Have This Time?
- Oh no! It’s been three entire days since the last virus plagued your house, and your child has flushed cheeks again. Do you:
A) Grab the thermometer to see if it’s a fever.
B) Grab your phone to look up if it’s a viral rash.
C) Grab the pediatrician’s number.
D) Grab the tequila.
2. What color is the mucus streaming from your child’s nose?
A) Clear, like every shelf at Rite Aid when you’re desperately scouring for children’s Tylenol at 2 a.m.
B) White, like your eyeballs when your contagious child sneezes directly into them.
C) Yellow, like the pallor of your face after last month’s round of gastroenteritis.
D) Green, like the money you’re working to make so that you can spend it on the daycare they’re barely even able to attend.
3. How would you describe your child’s cough?
A) A constant throat clearing, just loud enough to keep you up all night.
B) As dry as two crumbled sleeves of saltines.
C) Moist, viscous, phlegmy, and other words everyone hates.
D) *blearily searches YouTube for “what does croup sound like”*
4. Could it be an ear infection?
A) I guess?
B) Another one??
C) Wait, why are ear infection symptoms so mysterious?
D) Does my kid even really need ears???
5. Is your child displaying any gastrointestinal distress?
A) Nausea
B) We’ve got a poop situation.
C) Frequent vomiting (but at least they’re getting it in the toilet!)
D) Frequent vomiting :(
6. Sigh. All right, who’s calling into work this time?
A) You
B) Your spouse
C) You’re starting to consider being in a throuple, just to have a third person around who has sick days.
D) You’re out of PTO, so you’ll just work from home with your sick child there. Ha!
7. Should you go to the doctor?
A) I prefer frantic 3 a.m. consultations with Dr. Google.
B) We have a “buy 9 trips, get one free” punch card from the urgent care.
C) The pediatrician has us on speed dial.
D) We already met our deductible, so we’re headed there, baby!
8. How many days of healthy kids can you look forward to before the next illness hits?
A) 1
B) 2
C) 2.5
D) A luxurious full week, during which they will be healed and full of energy and you will now be the one on death’s door.
RESULTS:
Mostly As: Your child has a virus with a fever, or possibly the flu! You must have something unmovable and nonrefundable coming up.
Mostly Bs: Sounds like yet another cold, perhaps soon branching out creatively into bronchiolitis.
Mostly Cs: Congrats, you’ve scored a stomach bug! Replenish your Pedialyte stash, relax, and wait for the whole family to fall one by one, like the world’s worst game of dominoes.
Mostly Ds: “Tripledemic” wild card! Could it be Covid? RSV? Strep? Hand foot and mouth? Scurvy? The fun is in the guessing!
DISCLAIMER: This quiz is not actually intended to diagnose anything other than soul-crippling parental malaise.
