Sep 9, 2008

A Really Really Really Bad Day or One Good Thing is....

Well the one good thing is that he had only had water and saltines since last night, but let me start from the beginning. Three weeks ago Jenny came down with this strange mystery virus. It doesn't cause a fever, or runny nose, or coughing, any of the usual things that indicate that you are sick. It just made her feel bad; body aches, tiredness, general malaise. Stay at home mom's don't really get sick days so for the most part she still had all of her regular duties in child care. I think I went in late a couple of days so she could sleep in and I took at least half a day off. After about a week of this you start to wonder if the person is faking it, that is, you wonder until you come down with the same sickness. Fortunately she started getting over it as I came down with it.

So for the next week I felt horrible with no visible signs of sickness, then on the Friday of Labor Day weekend we had a trip planned to Buena Vista Co. I was pretty hesitant about it since I was still getting over being sick and I was still very tired. But we packed and hit the road. I had a sore throat and was exhausted the whole time, but it was okay otherwise. Even after getting back on Tuesday I still was not feeling my best. Finally after a few days I came down with a full blown cold, missed another day of work some where in there, I think... it is all pretty foggy, and slowly everyone else in the family has come down sick now too. Except Ethan.

I wish Ethan was sick because right now he is screaming "DADDY, I AM TALKING TO YOU" while I ignore him. He has been crying for me to put on a show for him for the last 10 minutes and I told him not right now, but that I would do it for him later. That isn't good enough though, he wants it "NOW!". Before that he was throwing a fit because he wanted his yo-yo back, before that he was throwing a fit because he was frustrated with the yo-yo because he couldn't get it to do what he wanted it to.

Jacob came home sick from school yesterday with a fever and since he absolutely refuses to take any medicine he suffers through his high temperatures with no relief. At about 4:00 this morning Jenny got up and went to Dillon's and Walgreen's because her ears were hurting so bad that she wanted to get some ear drops. After she got back and laid back down, around 5:00 Samuel starting crying. I put a shirt on him, covered him up better and gave him some of the ear drops (Finally Ethan went away... wait he is back... Jacob threw up in the toilet, he is okay though), so after laying Samuel back down in the middle of the night I checked on Jacob and he was burning up. I took his temperature and it said 106!! I freaked out a little bit, brain damage begins at 105 (or so I have heard). I woke Jenny back up and ran to get some ice water. She took his temp again several times and it only came to 103, whew, that was a close call. So Jenny laid back down and I finally convinced Jacob to take some Ibuprofen. That is the best he has ever done with taking medicine and he slept until after 9 this morning because of it.

Samuel has this 6th sense of knowing when I lay down. After finishing with Jacob at around 6:00 I laid down and as soon as I shut off my lamp, WHAAAAAA. Samuel was crying for something again. This time I held him for a little bit and gave him some Ibuprofen too. He slept fine after that.

After we got up this morning things are mostly a blur. I remember laying on the couch and Ethan and Samuel fighting over who could lay where on top of me. I remember Ethan bulling Samuel several times and whining because he was hungry (yes I did get up and feed him). Then he started with the aforementioned yo-yo at about 8:30 and hasn't stopped whining or crying or throwing a full blown fit ever since.

Jenny's ear problem was only getting worse. She already had a scheduled appointment this morning that she went to and when she came back she was obviously in extreme pain. She took some Ibuprofen, some more sudafed to help clear up her sinuses and then she even took some percocet left over from when I had my wisdom teeth removed (I am sitting on the deck right now and Mason, our dog, just chased a squirrel from out of a tree onto our house. He is looking down at me and for a moment I actually feared that he was going to pounce on me. I could see it in his beady little eyes. Whew, he is gone now. Off to hatch another evil plan). Still the pain was not letting up for Jenny. So she called her Dr. and scheduled an appointment for about an hour later at 10:50. She wanted to leave right then, and since she was in no shape to drive herself I loaded everyone up in the car to take her. The kids were mostly still in just their underwear, I had to carry Jacob from the couch out to the car. We pulled out of the driveway and drove up to the stop sign at the end of our street and Jacob said, "I feel like I am going to puke". I put the car in reverse and started to back up to our driveway again and BLAAAAAH.... BLAAAAAH... too late. The one good thing is that he had only had water and saltines since last night.

So Jenny took my car while I cleaned out the van. Ethan then threw a fit because we weren't going with Mommy. Jenny called about 45 minutes later and sounded horrible, I could barely understand anything she said, just that the doctor had given her some prescriptions that she was waiting to get filled at Walgreen's. When Jenny got home later, Ethan had thankfully calmed down and she was feeling a little better. She said that she got in to see the doctor early after they saw her putting finger dents in the armrest of her chair in the waiting room and that when the doctor looked in her ear, she gasped in surprise to see how swollen the inside was and that her ear drum was bleeding a little bit. There was a pinhole in it that was draining fluid and it might get bigger which would actually be a good thing because then it would drain faster. She gave Jenny a steroid, antibiotics and some oxycodone.

Things seem to have calmed down for the time being. The kids are quietly watching TV, Samuel is playing nicely, Jenny is resting in bed and now I have to figure out how to feed all of us . I really don't feel up to cooking anything and fast food sounds terrible... maybe I will just lay down while I have the chance.

I am sick of being sick!

3 comments:

Jenny said...

You have been so sweet and wonderful and strong for us! Thank you!!!!! And look, now the pain has let up enough for me to be up to read your blog, and Jacob hasn't thrown up since this morning. Whew. Maybe we have past the worst of it.

P.S. - Thanks for cleaning out the van. I completely blocked from my mind that that would need to be done...

betsyann said...

I left a great and funny and sympathetic and inspiring comment before, but our new router that works fantastically well with MJL's laptop doesn't work with my computer (go figure) and so it never was posted. So you'll have to imagine it.

lobiwan said...

I'm pretty sure that neither Jenny nor Jacob are faking it, but you totally are. Faker.