Yes, I've been remiss in writing here. Again. This time, I make no apologies. When I say, "it's been a week," I realllly mean, "it's been QUITE A WEEK."
Last Friday, my daughter got off of the school bus looking pale. She also informed me that while on her hour long bus journey, she had wet her pants right before her stop. I brought her in the house, changed her out of her wet stuff, and took her temperature because she looked quite piqued. I almost fainted. Her temperature was 104F.
Of course, I then started to feel a little angry with the school. Did they not NOTICE a kid with a 104 fever??? How long was she at school feeling like that? I remembered though that nowadays, teachers don't ever actually TOUCH their students. Who WOULD know then if a kid had a fever? Well, other then them telling you they didn't feel so great which my kids generally don't do.
The fever rose, despite the use of Tylenol, to over 105F. At this point, I was getting pretty panicky. We gave her some Tylenol and Advil together to bring down the fever fast, and then alternated the two every few hours. That seemed to work, though her temperature never did go down under 101. It was a long, sleepless week for me. When my kids are sick, I don't generally sleep. I'm being absolutely serious here. I watch them, check their temps, check their breathing, give them sips of water, sponge their foreheads and wrists. Suffice to say, I'm a wreck.
I closed the daycare for almost the whole week (re-opened Friday) and kept her home from school. She seemed much better by Wednesday night, and it was at that point that the fever finally broke.
My Dad had also had a stroke and was rushed into the hospital. They also found he had double pneumonia and a cyst on his kidney and a bacterial infection. How much can one man TAKE? Apparently, quite a bit. They didn't think he'd recover from the stroke but he's doing much better. He's on antibiotics for the other messes inside his body, but the good news is-he has gone home. The bad news is, more strokes are imminent. Due to everything else my Dad has going on, they can't operate on the cyst. So, benign or malignant, it's just staying where it is and they can't know more about it than that really. He also can't take the typical blood thinners to reduce the chance of more strokes, so he's just gone home to wait and see what happens and when. I don't know that the quality of living is great doing that-waiting for the stroke to come that will kill you-but the alternative of living in a hospital isn't very appealing either.
In the middle of these stressful life moments, my two daughters received their reports that they had passed their swimming levels. They are both doing so great in the water, and I'm loving it. My youngest was the only one in her class to pass and she's now on to learning the front crawl and swimming longer lengths. My oldest has finally mastered her crawl and retrieving things from the bottom of the pool, and is now on to perfecting her dives.
Their dance classes are also going well, though every time we go with them and wait in the room with the parents, it's a cesspool of germs and illness. I don't know why people continue to bring their children when they are sick, but apparently they do. It's a dance class, folks. They can miss a week, or two.
The highlight of this week, well maybe this month actually, is that we are going HOME to visit for our "Christmas" with my family. We don't get to travel at Christmas time itself, so this is it. I have all of my presents bought and just need to get them wrapped in the next day or two. We'll leave them there for Christmas day, and bring some back as well. Whoohoo. The best part of course is just seeing my family and my friends that I miss so much. There's nothing like going home where you know that you are loved and supported, no matter how neurotic you may be. Not that I'm talking about myself there you know. Just, in general.
I have to say that life has been feeling a tad overwhelming lately. It seems when I feel like I finally have my finger on the pulse of my life, it goes haywire. At one point last week I broke down in tears because it seemed like everyday was just some new fresh hell. Luckily this week is moving along much smoother and I'm taking some more deep breaths and pushing forward.
Glad to be back in the land of the living! Thanks for waiting me out!
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