Somebody help me please - any help much appreciated!

Hi,
I am trying to make a spreadsheet for work (which needs to be done by tomorrow ) Basically it is about sick leave - set out a bit like a calender for each month - i.e. days for each month running along the top (each month is on a separate workbook) and peoples names runnning down the side. Every time someone has a day off for sick leave the letter S is written in the appropriate cell. At the end of each row the spreadsheet has to add up the amount of days sick (which I did using the countif function) and (now this is the problem) add up the number of occassions sick. For example if a person is sick 3 days consecutively that would count as one occassion wheareas if they were sick 3 days but not in a row that would count as 3 occasions.
Does anyone know how I can do this?
Please please please any help will be much appreciated.
Thanks and apologies for the long post.