last week

Reminding myself that this is also a journal of sorts (which I have really stunk at keeping up on a regular basis) here is a recap of my last week beginning with last Saturday . . .

Saturday, October 17

My mom was visiting and so we met with her and my brother and his family at Molly’s place. Enjoyed lunch together at the local Pizza Ranch. The kids enjoyed seeing each other since they don’t get to see each other very often. You can see that they can be kind of silly sometimes!

Emma, Callie, and Alexa

Callie and Alexa

Grammy Sue and the grandkids

Got home from lunch and put Zachary down for a nap. He started to cough a little with that ‘croupy’ cough. (If your kids have had it you know what I’m talking about – the bark.) I thought to myself that it was a little odd. He had no other symptoms at all. No runny nose, no cough, nothing. BUT he had been exposed to croup the previous week. He’s had it last winter, so I knew what to expect . . . or so I thought. About 45 minutes after I put him down I heard something that didn’t sound right and I found him downstairs in his crib gasping for air. He was fighting his hardest to breathe. In the middle of that he started throwing up. Yuck! I took him to the ER because he was really fighting hard for air. I think what worried me the most is that it had come on so fast with no warning. With his underlying lung problems I didn’t want to take any chances.

They treated him as if it was croup. Tested him for Influenza A – negative. Gave him a steroid shot. Nebulizer treatment. Did blood work and chest x-rays.  (I would dare to bet that we’ve now met our deductible!) They put him on an antibiotic in case he had aspirated any of the vomiting back into his lungs. Back home we went.

Sunday, October 18

Zachary – wheezing a bit, but nothing unusual with croup. He had perked up nicely and we spent some time with cousins taking pictures for Christmas.

The cool fall air made Zachary feel much better as you can see below. He was out running around with the stick he found.

Sunday night I gave Zachary a nebulizer treatment and he got a fever. Strange, but I just figured his body was fighting something. Woke up the next morning just fine. Gave him a nebulizer treatment and he got another fever. Now this is strange!

Went through Monday, made some changes to his nebulizer tubing and got a new box of meds. He was fine all morning and enjoyed being outside at daycare. Monday afternoon when I picked him up he was not doing well. That night he spiked a temp of 103.

Tuesday he was very lethargic and fought a temp most of the day. The doctor added another antibiotic along with the other one he was already taking. When he finally woke up from his nap that afternoon I was able to give him his first dose. Two hours later the kid was completely different! Makes you wonder what sort of bacterial infection he had going on too. Hmmmm . . .

Wednesday, October 21

By this time, my mom has been with us since Monday night. What a great time to visit! Of course since Zachary had a fever on Tuesday he needed to be fever free for 24 hours, so my mom stayed with Zachary for a couple hours in the morning, so I could go to work and get a few things done which was very helpful!

At about 12:30 on Wednesday, I received a call from the school that Callie had a tummy ache and 99.5 temp. As this point I figured . . . it was going to hit us sometime! We have been lucky that we have stayed as healthy as we had until the middle of October. About 3-4 weeks ago H1N1 hit here pretty hard and many kids were sick at school and throughout the community. Sickness isn’t as rampant as it once was.

I picked Callie up and she did look a little flushed. I settled her on the couch and put Zachary down for a nap. About 30 minutes later, “Mom, I’m hungry.” That began what would be an annoying afternoon. Callie was no where close to being sick – at all! She was soon running around the house, dancing, spinning, climbing on the chair behind me while I worked, etc., etc. You get the picture! When I called the school later that afternoon to find out their exact policy in sending her back (I already knew the 24 hours fever free without meds). I wanted to know what their minimum temp was. After a little heeing and hawing around . . . “99.5 is really close to 100, so you should keep her home for 24 hours. Since that would be 12:45 tomorrow then you really should just keep her home for the entire day. Parents are telling us that often time the real sickness hits several hours after they’ve been home.”

Okay, I said, we’ll see what happens here. I’m a little peeved at this time. She is soooo NOT sick. I get that the school has policies and with everything that had been going around all the precautions need to be in place.

Thursday was spent at home with Callie. Running around the house. Standing on the chair that I was sitting in trying to get some work done . . . all the while . . . making fake puking noises in my ear and then laughing hysterically! Oh, yeah, she was so not sick!