What's Up, Doc?

I'm getting further and further behind on the blog that it's starting to feel like quite the burden to get caught up!  We have had a heck of a time here the past month and a half, and it has left me with little energy (or desire) to blog.

In early May, Eli got sick with another round of a bad cough/cold, with a fever (just had the same thing in March).  The cough lingered probably near a week.  Clara caught it, but mostly just a cough with her.  Only TWO WEEKS after that, Eli woke up with a fever in the middle of the night.  The next day he seemed okay, but that evening had the fever again, and by the following day the cough and cold were back again.  His cough was really horrible that time around.  Lots of disrupted sleep, waking and crying.  He had a really sore throat and headaches.  (Clara still had a leftover cough from the 1st round of sickness.)  I decided to take him to the dr. to make sure his ears and everything was clear and he didn't have any infections.  Thankfully everything came back clear.

The only time I can get Eli to nap is when he has a fever.  Both times he was sick, he napped on the days he had a fever.

While Eli was in the throws of the 2nd sickness, Clara of course caught it, only it was much worse that time.  After having a cough/cold for a while, she woke up from a nap one day and was struggling with her breathing.  I was terrified, called a nurse, and they said to take her to the ER.  She wasn't turning blue or anything, so I decided to keep a watch on her and see what happened.  After doing research, we concluded that she had RSV.  That night Clara's coughing was so horrible.  She sounded a little croup-like.  We had set up the monitor in our room to make sure I could hear if she was struggling worse with her breathing.  Around 11:00 we got her up after a bad coughing spell, so I could nurse her.  Her breathing sounded so awful it scared us.  I called my sister, who was visiting her mother-in-law who's a pediatric nurse at a hospital and knows a lot about RSV.  After talking about Clara's symptoms, we were told that if she was able to eat and breathe, she'd be okay and wouldn't need to go to the hospital.  Thankfully Clara was nursing well, though she didn't eat much solids at all for about a week.

Her first night was the worst, but in the days following we were sure to keep our eyes and ears on her well to make sure her RSV didn't turn into pneumonia.  It's been over two weeks, and she's still coughing some at night and breathes a little heavier.  We're SO thankful that she was an older baby when she got RSV.  I'm also grateful I'm still nursing her.  I read that babies need lots of smaller feedings with RSV, since they can't breathe well.  I think that helped a lot.

Of course, this is not the end of our tale of woes!  A few days or so after the onset of RSV, Clara ended up with double pink eye!  Oh, the poor miserable girl!  I read a lot about it, too, and we assumed that it was viral pink eye (since it followed a bad cold), which meant that no antibiotic eye drops or ointment would do diddly squat.  But she had tons of gunk coming out of her eyes, so we just washed them several times a day (and of course washed our hands a bunch, too!).  Over two weeks passed, and she was still waking up with gunky eyes!  So I finally called the ped's office and they sent an eye drop prescription to our pharmacy.  It's been a few days since, and I think they're finally starting to clear up.  Somehow the rest of us have magically not caught it!

During all of Clara's troubles, Eli was still hacking away at night.  I was usually up with him several times through the night, and then up to feed Clara a couple times, too.  At one point I got too exhausted to keep getting up that I brought Eli to bed with us.  That action always brings consequences, doesn't it?  We just have a small double bed, so whenever Eli entered it, Dave hung on til he was eventually pushed out (Eli moves around an awful lot), and would finish the nights on the couch.  :(  Even though I didn't have to GET UP with Eli, I was still awake a lot helping him through his coughing fits.  This really turned into a bad habit, and lasted many nights.  When Eli's cough finally went away, he was still coming in to our room at night (not to mention, wasn't falling asleep until 9:00 when being put down by 7:30).  It took a while, but eventually I was able to carry him back to his room, rock him to sleep, and then he'd stay.

Needless to say, it was hard to not feel like a total CRANK on the mornings after these really hard nights.  I just felt like I never had a break.  To not even get your "designated sleeping time" kid-free makes it much harder to enjoy your children and want to be around them.  (The sleep-deprivation also causes you to completely lose your brain and do really idiotic things, such as forgetting your child's cloud dough cookies, sitting in a plastic ice cream tray, were still "baking" in the oven when you pre-heated it.  Yeah, that was a blast to clean up...)

David also succumbed to the evil cough, but somehow, even with my very little sleep and having snot, and sneezes, and coughs all over me, I managed to escape it.  Or so I thought...

I was starting to come up from air, thinking that I could breathe again because things were finally seeming to get back to normal.  Then last Friday I had a random sore throat.  I pretty much felt fine otherwise, so I figured it must be nothing.  But that night I knew it wasn't nothing, and felt feverish.  That Saturday I was basically a mess, who spent the majority of my time on the couch (thank goodness David was home!).  My throat hurt severely, I had a fever, headache, body aches, chills/sweats, but zero "basic" cold symptoms.  I practically never go to the doctor, but I thought I must have strep throat, so I took myself over to CVS minute clinic.  All the strep tests came back negative, and I ended up getting a nasty cough as well, so I assume I just caught the lingering, hated RSV bug.  (Man, is it vicious!)

I was so bummed to get sick then, because we were set to visit my family that day.  Since we couldn't make it, my mom and sister offered to take Eli and have him spend the night.  Dave and I were pretty reluctant at first, but the more crummier I felt, the more I knew what a blessing it would be to have them take care of him for me.  Plus I knew it would be way more fun than watching his poor mom suffer around the house.

Eli had a grand ol' time, and I'm thankful to live close enough to family that they are able to help when needed.

All I can say is, having loads of sickness in your family in a short period of time really makes you appreciate good health so much more!  I'm more than ready to give all this sick junk the big heave-ho!