Insanity

Let me tell you a little bit about the last 5 days of my life. I think they can all be summed up in one word.......

EXHUASTING.

I feel like my kids are sick all. The. TIME. And I'm 100% sure I'm not the only mom that feels that way. But for the last few weeks, both of our kids have been coughing, wheezing and snotting all over everything....It's gross and it's non-stop. Last Thursday, we were at the point where they both had pallets on our floor to sleep on because we were afraid they were going to choke on snot in their sleep and we wouldn't hear them and they would asphyxiate and we wouldn't know until several hours later when we went to wake them up!!!

Oh wait. Was that just me? Maybe it was just me.  (Insert awkward silence here)

But I'm SURE Nick felt the same way and just didn't happen to mention it while I was pleading my case to letting both our kids sleep in our room.

We talked about scheduling doctor appointments for them Friday, but we were SUUUUPER short staffed at my job and Nick was acting as general manager while his boss was out of town, so there was really no way either of us could take them in. We decided to just keep an eye on it and see how they were on Monday.

Yeah. Friday night sucked. Lots of coughing, lots of tossing and turning, lots of snot, lots of wheezing. With Tommy having asthma and the way both of their breathing sounded, I woke up Saturday morning and just wasn't willing to let it go any longer. Nick agreed, so we decided to take them to St. Francis immediate care. They opened at 9am, so we got there as close to 9 as we could. There were already at least 15 people checked in and waiting, so I was dreading the wait ahead.

However.....I ended up being very impressed with the whole process. We got seen within about 30 minutes (which is no worse than a regular doctor office). We only paid a $25 copay for each child, which was SO much better than an emergency room fee! The doctor started Tessa on a steroid and antibiotic and told us to continue the breathing treatments we'd been giving. She just said she had some wheezing in her lungs and since it had been going on for almost 2 weeks, she wanted to treat it before it got worse.

And then she listened to Tommy. And within 15 seconds of her seeing him, she diagnosed him with a  double ear infection and pneumonia.

OMG.

That explained SO much of our life the past week. He'd been crazy grumpy and frustrating, but hadn't said a word to us about his ears hurting or anything. I felt so bad for the little guy. She gave him a breathing treatment in the office and it didn't help at all. She gave him a steroid and antibiotic and we have to go back to our primary care to make sure the pneumonia's cleared up.

I'm so thankful we went in. We were really hesitant because we weren't sure about the wait time or how the service would be or what the copay would be. But I'm so, SO glad we went. I can't imagine if we would have let it go and his pneumonia would have gotten worse....such a scary thing.

On the flip side........taking care of 2 kids on steroids and albuterol breathing treatments is a little like when you walk through the jungle house in the Sedgwick County Zoo. Kinda dark and kinda creepy. You never know what's lurking around the next corner. You might not always see the animals, but you can always hear them, smell them or sense them watching you. You keep your eyes peeled because you know at any given moment an animal can swoop down and attack you or run across your path and trip you or crap on your face or pee in your hair. Even the caged animals are scary because you can see the rage in their eyes.

And that is what my kid's are like on steroids and albuterol. Nick has affectionately nicknamed it The Devil's Juice.

They're slowly on the mend. Lots of coughing still and some occasional wheezing, but better. In the midst of the week of steroids, we had a dentist visit, which added a whole other level to my exhaustion and scarred me and Tommy for life. But that's a completely different post for another time!

In the mean time, raise your glass to the end of the The Devil's Juice and a fresh week to come!