Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Blessings in the mess....

So yesterday morning I kissed my awesome husband goodbye as he went off to an undisclosed place to do some secret undisclosed work.  I love his job.  I love telling people about his job.  I love flashing his badge to people as though I AM his job as well.  But when he goes out of town, even for the smallest amount of time, (he's supposed to be back later this evening) I get crazy cranky.  I used to be far worse, and those times when he has to be gone for weeks at a time- I still get crazy cranky.  Thank goodness he never went into the military because, God bless those moms/dads who deal with spouses being gone for a year at a time.  I would be in a padded cell wearing a cozy straight jacket if he did... ;)

So he left at 7 yesterday morning and my little Kiki woke up with a mad fever shortly after.  I really didn't think anything of it at first- got her naked, trying to cool her off naturally, had my oldest feed her breakfast, which she ate most of, and I ran around dropping kids off here and there at their perspective summer activities.  I gave her a dose of Tylenol after she ate when I felt her again, and she still felt burning hot.  Kids get fevers.  I generally don't get freaked out immediately by them-it means their bodies are fighting an infection, which also means their bodies are working- so the older I've gotten, the less panicked I've also gotten-which is good because we can't afford to run to the doctor with every fever- and really, my kids are rarely sick, although this year has been a doozy as far as multiple illnesses go.

So her temp came down to 100.4 after two hours on the Tylenol, but it began to creep back up by lunch time.  I wasn't too worried- but I did notice a strange flat rash on her chest and back and thought it was not necessarily hand, foot, mouth, because that's usually on your hands/feet/mouth (duh!) but there were some smaller rash like spots on her feet and hands.  She went down for her nap by noon and I tried to call the clinic.  Of course, an immediate recording said the nurses were either at professional development or unavailable and please call back.

Ok, little word to the wise.  When you tell a mother of six children, who is pregnant with her seventh child to "call back?"  You may have just told her you'll talk to her in six months.  Cause once I hung up, lost that mental note inside the giant, vast, empty brain of mine, it was literally gone.  GONE!  Until she woke up at 3:00pm ON FIRE again.  I mean, her little body was so hot it freaked me out.  I have never witnessed a fever seizure, but that one made me panic into thinking it was coming.

It was only 103.1. (I say that because I've actually had kids have 105 temps before.)  I gave her another dose of Tylenol.  I called the nurses back, who informed me that the next available was 8:15 PM!  At least they fit her in the evening.   2 1/2 hours LATER after constant crying and moaning, I finally caved and gave her Motrin.  Please don't tell the child and human services, because I KNOW I didn't wait until the appropriate time, but I still had to wait until she was seen by the doctor and there was no consoling this child.  Literally, 20 minutes after the Motrin she calmed down.  She was actually perky and smiling and even eating a few crackers and taking a few sips of milk.

By 7:30 I decided to head over to the clinic and take my chances are getting in earlier.  We did!  The doctor was super nice, she was already getting a bit of her fever back and she suspected something other than just a fever thing as well with the rash on her feet and hands and when she looked in her poor mouth, it was full of blisters.  Yep.  Hand, foot, mouth disease, which is apparently really, REALLY bad this year.  "These are painful blisters," she said.  It's what causes them to not eat/drink.  GREAT.  So as in good mom fashion, I brought her home, tried to give her more drink, Popsicle, anything, but she wouldn't touch it.  She was past the point of happy, and we still had SEVERAL hours before her next dose of Motrin could be administered and I had already given her Tylenol several times that day, so.....  My plan was to set the alarm for midnite and check her temp.

I went to bed after checking her and thought, she didn't seem too hot, I'll just check her when I wake up for one of my MILLION bathroom treks.  That didn't happen until 1:30AM and when I went in there, she was a flaming ball of fire.  And she only had a onesie on, so she was as cool as she could be-but that fever was raging.  AND she was awake.  Just sucking the life out of her pacifier like it was her lifeline.  I felt horrible.  I ran downstairs and grabbed the Motrin and proceeded to give her the dose and then make 20 trips back and forth from the bathroom to her room filling the dropper with water as that was the only way she would drink.  I'll take anything at this point.  She cooled off, even though it took a while for her to settle down, and is actually still sleeping now.

Meanwhile, my kids went on a bleach cleaning spree last night.  Little do they realize they may have been the carrier for this-my 14 year old did all kinds of research and freaked the rest of us out by telling us you can actually carry the virus even AFTER you're physically better for WEEKS!  AND SPREAD IT!!!!  Guess I won't be going out until after school starts.

One silver lining in all of this I could find, because I am actually trying to find the good in the things that bring me down and once the sun came up this morning, I could see a little more clearly, is that God's hand was once again, in all of this.  First of all, they were calling for horrible storms all day yesterday.  We didn't go to the library because we didn't want to get stuck in one, and there were some good rain dumpers during the day, but then it looked like there were going to be some really bad ones-that had slight risks for tornadoes.  I was really nervous about the thought of one, leaving my kids during a storm, and two, driving and getting out during a storm!  (seriously, after going through several tornadoes in my short life span in Arkansas, you don't go ANYWHERE but the inside of your house when those threats come!)  But God once again showed His hand and I SAW it!  It rained pretty good and was crazy windy, and the weather channel was showing severe storms, etc, lots of warnings, but all of the sudden, the rain stopped, it cleared up, and the sun came out!  It  turned out to be a really beautiful evening!  At least where I live.  There were some deadly storms in NY and PA and several people lost their lives, God rest their souls.

I couldn't believe how perfect the evening went, looking back.  Of course, by the time I got home, crawled into bed and laid there thinking of the day, I felt defeated.  It's amazing how much more clear things become in the morning.  Thankfully!  I am blessed.  Probably more than I deserve, and I am grateful.

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