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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Table Rock on steroids

I'm having a hard time getting motivated to blog lately. Not because I don't have anything to write about. More because I have so MUCH to write about, but no time to do it! The first week of September was insane. It was like our trip to Table Rock, but on steroids.

*Disclaimer--this is really long and mostly documentation for my memory's sake!*

We had Monday, September 2nd off of work because of the holiday, so I was all set for it to be a nice, relaxing week. Wrong. Tommy was kind of sniffly and puny all day Monday. He wasn't acting much better Tuesday, so I called his PCP and asked for amoxicillin and luckily, they called it in without an appointment. We gave that Tuesday night. He was acting a little better on Wednesday, so I dropped him off at Brooke's with some Tylenol and a kiss. I called a few times during the morning and she said he was being super quiet and clingy and whiny. I took my lunch and hoped he would feel better. And then she called and said he was throwing up. Gross.

**Sidenote-- Funny story that I didn't find out until a week later. Tommy was sleeping and then started yelling for Brooke because he threw up. When Brooke ran in to see what was wrong, she left some chip dip on the couch.........yeah. Bad idea. She said she came out to the living room and Tessa had a handful of dip and was shoveling in her mouth as fast as she could!! I about died laughing when I heard that. I can just see her spooning it in with her hands and watching for Aunt Brooke to come back! So funny!**

Anywho, we were short staffed at work, so I couldn't leave. Nick took off work to go pick the kids up. I got home around 6:00pm and Tommy was just laying around and cuddling and watching Mickey Mouse. I don't think he moved from his spot the whole night. He slept really good and was much more enthusiastic the next morning, so he went back to Brooke's. That was Thursday. The rest of Thursday passed without incident.

And then there was Friday.......oh Friday. Friday, Friday, Friday. FRRRRIIIIIIDAAAAYYY!!!!!!! Okay, enough of that. But really, it was a horrible day.

First, I had taken the morning off so I could take Tessa to the oral surgeon. Her PCP was concerned about her lip tie, so we scheduled this appointment to get it checked out. I was going to have Tommy stay the night at Brooke's Thursday night so I wouldn't have to take him too, but she ended up working really late. So all three of us headed off to the appointment the next morning. They were being pretty good, so I crossed my fingers and prayed for angelic children during the whole appointment. After waiting for about 20 minutes in the waiting room, I was about to go nuts. They had automatic doors there. Enough said. The kids thought it was awesome, but I'm pretty sure me and everyone in the waiting room was super annoyed by the 900th time they set it off. Then we went back to the room and it got worse. They had O2 hook-ups coming out of the wall and Tommy kept hitting the tubes. They also had a button on the floor you could push with your foot that moved the chair up and down. Yeah. And some GENIUS put a phone at my knee height, so Tessa's head height. Why?!? Who would do that in a room where children go?!? I had put Tommy in time out for hitting and he was screaming at the top of his lungs that I was MEAN. I would put him in the chair and then have to run over to pull Tessa off the phone, then run back to put him back in the time out chair. I was over it. And then the doctor came in. He lifted her lip, confirmed she does indeed have a lip tie and said they usually don't treat it until they're old enough to need braces. So if it's still a concern, we can come back then. Really? REALLY?! When you saw she was ONE and coming in for a lip tie, why didn't you save me the 1 1/2 hours and the drive in and the time off work and tell me that on the phone? SO annoying. So I drove the kids back to Towanda and then drove BACK to Wichita. I got there at about 11:30am.

At around 12:30pm, Brooke called me at work and as soon as she started talking, I started packing up my stuff. I could hear in her tone that she was panicking before I could even comprehend what she was saying. I heard, "table fell on his head"....."blood"....."I don't think his nose is broken"........and I was gone. She has a big, tall pub style table and him and his friend had decided (in his words, after we left the ER), "Aunt Dook don't have a swing, so we swinged on dah table." They were hanging onto the edge and before she could even tell them to let go, the table fell over on them. She wasn't sure if he needed to go to the ER or not, so I called my mom and had her head over there. Thank God for his timing because Brooke's mother-in-law showed up right after everything happened. Between the three of them, they decided he definitely needed to go to the ER. I tried to get there as fast as I could, but stupidly took Kellogg. They had construction, so it was down to one lane. My blood was BOILING by the time I got through it and I miiiiiiiight have said the 'f'' word  once  twice  a few times. I was dying because my baby was going to be at the ER without me. I called Nick on the way and he was meeting us there.

When I FINALLY got to the Andover ER, my mom and Brooke's mother in law had Tommy inside already. When I saw him, I was SO glad we had brought him in.

The gash on his head was pretty deep and bleeding a LOT. His whole shirt was covered in blood. I can see why Brooke was panicked! The doctor came in pretty quickly and decided to just use glue so we didn't have to put him through the trauma of stitches. I was grateful for that. He perked up quickly and was already reaking havoc on the exam room by the time we were ready to leave. We took him to Micky's Frozen Yogurt in Andover so he could get some ice cream for being so brave. He picked chocolate with chocolate chips, chocolate candy bar stuff and chocolate syrup :) He is his father's child.



We finally got home around 4:30pm. It was Nick and I's anniversary, so we debated for awhile whether we should still go out. We finally decided to have my mom watch the kids at our house so we could still go out, but be with them through the night in case Tommy had any problems. Right before we got ready to leave, Tessa started running a fever. Being the good mom I am, I doped her up with ibuprofen and we got the heck out of Dodge. I felt a tiny bit guilty, but at that point, we were ready for a break from the ridiculously crazy week we'd had. We had a great dinner and saw a hilarious movie. The kids were both sleeping when we got home. They woke up the next morning in good moods and no fevers.

Then Sunday came. We went to church, but as soon as we got home, I realized Tommy felt pretty hot. Like, REALLY hot. His fever was 101. We kept giving Tylenol and ibuprofen and the fever stayed under control. He went to bed doing okay, but woke up screaming at the top of his lungs around 3am. I went to check on him and he asked for a drink. When I gave it to him, he took the tiniest sip and started crying and saying it hurt. I looked in his mouth, but couldn't see anything, so assumed he was just tired, so I got him back to sleep. The next morning, the same thing happened. One drink of water and he was flipping out. I looked in his mouth again and it was covered in red bumps and blisters. Saddest thing ever. He couldn't even hardly eat a popsicle. I took him to Brooke's because we had both missed a lot of work. I was hoping Tylenol would help, but every time I called to check on him, she said he still wasn't eating or drinking. Nick took off again (thanks honey!) and took him to the doctor. They gave him a steroid, a new antibiotic and Tylenol with codeine. We started all the meds Monday night and it was like we had a new kid. I was SO thankful we had gone ahead with an appointment. The poor kid was miserable.

The blisters stayed for a few days, but didn't seem to bother him after the first day. It was truly an answer to prayer. I was so worried about the little guy. Praise God, since then we've managed to stay fairly health and avoid any major catastrophes. I try to thank God constantly  now for our health and protection. Even when my kids have lots of hard stuff going on, I know someone else has it harder and that's a true motivation to try, Try, TRY to be grateful for every circumstance in life!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

THAT girl

Sometimes, things happen in life so repeatedly that we start to have a false sense of reality. I am very, VERY guilty of that. If something happens more than once, I start to think, "Of course! That's the story of my life--why WOULDN'T that happen today?"

At work, it seems like we go days without any problems and then all the sudden, every patient shows up 20 minutes late. And it happens like that for 4-5 days at a time. And in those 4-5 days, I get so annoyed and frustrated and it starts to become my reality that other people have no respect for OUR time because they show up late, causing US to run late and I get mad. Because that's just what happens in my life.

Or my kids are angels a few days in a row and I make good snacks and think of fun things to do and we live in pinterest-world and I think I'm mom of the year. And then the next week goes horribly (think Table Rock) and I forget about the good week and live in the reality that I'm a bad mom and my kids are going to grow up to be snotty and rude teenagers because I have no idea how to discipline them, lose my temper more than I should and canNOT get my son to poop in the toilet!!! Because that's just what happens in my life.

Or Nick and I have a week full of long evenings together after the kids sleep and a date night that has great conversation and then we have loooots of dessert (you know what I'm sayin when I say "dessert"..............uh, brownies, of course!! Get your mind outta the gutter!). But then the next week he's on third shift and we hardly get to see each other and I start feeling distant and like we haven't spoken in a week and it becomes my reality that we're fighting over nothing and both so sleep deprived that we're a little delirious. Because that's JUST what happens in MY life!!

But I read a book recently called Unglued. And it's really made me stop and think about the thought process of, "That's just my luck" or "Yup, I'm that girl that annoying stuff always happens to." Why claim that for myself? Out of our mouth comes the overflow of our hearts. And my heart sometimes lives in some very false realities. When I pronounce that over myself-- 'of course every patient is going to be late and rude today' or 'my kids are crazy because I'm just that crazy mom that can't control them' or 'my husband must not be in love with me anymore because we're not making out every second of every day'--I'm just asking to set myself up to fail.

And I'm tired of doing that. It is my goal and mission to start proclaiming God's word over my life instead of letting little thoughts that Satan plants in my mind become the truth that I live by! I don't want to be THAT girl that always blames luck for the things that happen in my life. I challenge you to do the same!!