Filed under: Home Sweet Home, Illness and Injury | Tags: H1N1, pregnancy, swine flu
There was one day when I kissed my kids goodnight and cried, thinking I’d be in the hospital dying before they were awake the next morning. I have never felt so awful in my life and I was sure there was no way I would make it through. I know it sounds dramatic, but it was honestly felt. I just couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing them again. With that was the thought that even if I lived, I would lose this precious life I am carrying. My mother said that swine flu was a very bad thing to have when you’re pregnant and my doctor had told me that she knew one person who had miscarried. I tried all I could to not be afraid, but sometimes it’s easier to succumb to it than fight it off.
Late Tuesday night, after being so sure of death at the end of this, I threw up. It was pregnancy related and not from the flu at all and somehow I felt a lot better afterward. Maybe it was life reminding me of its determination to keep me, or my baby telling me - as Mike said – that I wasn’t about to take it down with me. The unfortunate thing is that overnight, I ended up with a splitting earache – a second trip to the doctor confirmed an ear infection. An ear infection!! My kids get ear infections, I do not. But apparently swine flu put me into a childlike state physically speaking (and at times, emotionally). Thankfully antibiotics fixed that problem quickly – I was over the pain after less than two days.
On Thursday the boys came down with swine flu. We called the doctor and after describing Erik’s symptoms, including respirations and heart rate, she prescribed tamiflu for him. I thought I was saved a third trip to the clinic, but when I got to the pharmacy, the prescription wasn’t there and I had to go in anyway to straighten things out. This was of course, breaking my bed rest yet again, but I figured that a drive to the pharmacy would be less work than watching the kids if Mike went to get it. It would have been were it not for the additional drive and walk into the clinic. I felt like falling over as soon as I got home.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that swine flu takes it out of you. And swine flu plus pregnancy equals misery. But I’m getting over it – still coughing a bit and still very tired. I felt like tackling my kitchen today, it was in such a state, but after I got up and fed the kids breakfast and put on a movie for them, I knew it wouldn’t be happening. I’ll be lucky if I feel up to it by the end of the week. Mike is back to work today but was home all last week and we didn’t go anywhere for more than a few minutes – and that was just sending Mike out to get Tylenol or food. We had a few very kind women (my mother-in-law and sister-in-law included) who brought us meals and baked things. I have more cookies, buns and treats in my house right now than I have at any Christmas past. Just a few minutes ago, a friend and her daughter came by and gave us a bag full of snacks. My friend said that her daughter decided that they needed to get us a present – she is good friends with Jenny and has been since birth. It’s nice having so many people thinking about us and praying for us, but it will be even nicer to get out of here and see some of them.
We’re watching a move tonight and I’m just hoping I won’t regret it – for both the sake of the content and subject of the movie, and for staying up for the next few hours. Tomorrow afternoon I have my first maternity appointment and I’ll be able to confirm the health of this little life I’m carrying.
Mike, Jenny and I have swine flu. I’m on bed rest for three days and if I get any sicker than I am now, I’ll be hospitalized. I’m at greater risk for complications because of pregnancy and my risk of miscarriage is higher because of my fever. At the moment, I’m trying to rest and not worry, but I feel like death warmed over so it’s not very easy to do either. Also, Erik is at a higher risk of complications because of his asthma. So far he’s okay, but he’s definitely been exposed, so I don’t really expect him to stay healthy. We would appreciate prayer for peace of mind and safety for myself, the baby and Erik as well. I won’t be updating for awhile – not until I’m well out of the woods.
Filed under: Holidays, Illness and Injury, Kiddos, Life, in general, Mi familia | Tags: Blogging, flu, Life
I miss the old days – when words just floated through my fingers into the keyboard and extreme fatigue or nausea didn’t place a block in my head. But I have to re-start somewhere as I’m not about to give up. I’m getting a netbook soon and I’m planning great things with it – like spending one evening a week catching up on my writing – so I’m not going to quit blogging just yet.
Anyway, here is a recap of this past week (post-birthday entry).
Jenny got over her infection quickly, thank heavens, but all the kids are still a bit runny nosed. Erik was in the ER on Friday night because his breathing was so wheezy and I didn’t really feel like leaving it alone was in his best interest. He just now finished up a four day course of prednisone. He’s still coughing up a storm and I’m a little bit concerned that he might need antibiotics to get rid of it.
Friday after the hospital, I went to watch Mike play hockey with his dad. I don’t know who won. I spent the majority of the time taking Elias to the bathroom. I’m seriously thinking that he likes the bathrooms in the new arena so much that he’s peeing his pants just so we have to go there. The third time I took him, we stayed there for nearly fifteen minutes, drying his pants and underwear under the automatic dryers. Jenny kept saying she had to go again while we were there - I think this is because she really likes the sink and wanted an excuse to wash her hands one more time . My kids are so weird sometimes. The big perk to Friday night and that ER visit is that Mike set it up for the kids to spend the night at his parents’ house, since he was playing hockey and we didn’t know whether I would be going home or not. They left the game a bit early and I just had Erik for the rest of the night.
We had a lazy start on Saturday, mostly because of our late night on Friday and the fact that this was the first Saturday that Mike has had off for about a month. I honestly cannot remember much about the day, except that it was fairly surreal having only one child to deal with. We headed over to Mike’s parents’ house around eleven and played games and napped for most of the afternoon (read: Mike played games, I napped). We had a nice Mennonite meal for supper – corn, Farmer’s Sausage (don’t ask – I have no idea what to compare it to because I’ve never eaten it…it smells good cooking, anyway), homemade noodles and tilapia. Okay, so the tilapia was mostly for me and not really Mennonite at all. In fact, being blackened cajun tilapia, it was pretty much the total opposite of Mennonite food. Mike had yet another game on Saturday night, this time with his rec. team and I decided to go because we were already out anyway. Once again, I don’t know who won. I spent most of that game telling my children not to play with the caution tape strung all over the arena and feeling frustrated that one woman there was letting her grandson do whatever he wanted with it. And also, talking to my sister-in-law and her sister-in-law. I haven’t had much time to talk to Marcy lately and it was a real treat. She has the baby bug pretty bad so she’s enjoying our kids and my pregnancy and hoping to have a few more next year.
Sunday came too early as we had decided to go to the early service. We did this because our Thanksgiving meal was set for 3:30 that afternoon. Second service gets out after noon most weeks, which would give us about forty-five minutes to go shopping for salad fixings (since that was my offering to the meal), have lunch and get the kids home and to bed for a nap. We decided that although we would inevitably be very tired in the morning, we would force ourselves to get up and get to church by 9:15. Church was over by 10:30 and we headed out to get everything done. The great thing is that the kids were down, I had the salad more or less ready to go and we were able to have a nap, too.
Thanksgiving dinner went very well and we celebrated my birthday afterward. Again, I can’t remember much except that my sister-in-law is making me a nice crocheted toque (a hat, Americans 
) and Mike’s parents gave me a nice bit of money to add to my computer fund. We left in time to get home and put the kids to bed in a hurry before Mike went to yet another hockey game – this time a church game. Three hockey games with three different teams in three days - yes, that’s my life. This time I stayed home (obviously, since I didn’t feel that leaving the kids home alone was a good idea) and was determined to be productive. I sat at the computer for at least forty-five minutes and suddenly started feeling sick to my stomach. It got worse over the next hour and I wondered whether I should stick to the plan or avoid any work. I finally decided that I would feel sick whether I folded laundry or swept the floor or laid on the couch reading. I swept under the table (I think my kids think we have a dog – they leave plenty to eat for him under there…come to think of it, having a dog would make my job easier at times). I noticed while I was sweeping that the walls were coloured on, spilled on, and scuffed up and decided that while I was at it, I should wash them. So, totally against my nature, I grabbed a bucket and some towels and started scrubbing. With the aid of a Magic Eraser (I love those things!), I got it looking much better. They are still in sore need of a coat of paint, but at least now if I feel like painting, the walls will be clean.
I finished up the evening by folding about four loads of laundry and getting another two or three going. In between the cleaning, I threw up a few times. It never did make me feel better.
On Monday we managed to sleep in until nine and then Mike got up with the kids and fed them and entertained them until after eleven, when I finally got up. The strangest thing is that with how sick I was on Sunday night, I expected to feel bad when I woke up. I felt totally normal on Monday morning – go figure! When we finally were up and dressed and fed, we went back to Mike’s parents’. My sister-in-law from out of town had wanted to play a particular game all weekend and Mike and his dad finally played it with her that afternoon, just before she and her husband had to head home. I played another game with my mother-in-law and brother-in-law while the kids napped (or rather, while they messed around and got into trouble about six times for not napping).
After more food, more dessert and a few more games, we went home and had supper. I talked to my brother after not talking to him for a few months and Mike slept a bit while the kids were watching a movie. This was also when Elias decided to somehow get the disk drive stuck open. We really can’t figure it out and will probably be taking it somewhere to get it fixed. Mike rented a movie that we didn’t like very much and we stayed up later than we should have. Nothing new there, anyway.
This morning at around seven, I woke up to hear Jenny yelling, “Oh, my! Oh, my! Oh, my!” I ran in and she said something about her “breathe” and that she was going to throw up. I rushed her into the bathroom and..nothing. I figured taking her back to my room would be smarter than sending her back to bed, just in case the puking really did happen at some point. It turned out to be a very good decision – although my sheets are now in the wash and my garbage can has vomit in it. After throwing up, we both went back to sleep and slept until after nine when the boys woke up. I’m now assuming that whatever was wrong with me on Sunday night is what was wrong with Jenny this morning, as she seems just fine now. I guess it’s just a really short-lived bug.
Anyway, I should probably be having a nap right now, but like I said, you have to start somewhere and now seemed like a good time for it. And anyway, I can always go to bed early tonight. Oh, right, Mike has another hockey game. Sigh.
Whatever I promised to write is gone from my mind. My life has been beyond chaotic (for me, anyway) for the last few weeks. We’ve been through hospital stays, various illnesses, teething, and most recently, have been sleeping in the living room for the last three nights so that Erik will learn to sleep through the night.
I wish I could blame my lack of updating on writers block – at least that can be gotten over – but it has more to do with life as of late. I’d much rather have writers block than the circumstances I’ve been in for the last month. Adding the craziness of VBS to the mix didn’t help, and neither did feeling I was pregnant for a good week and a half. I’m not, by the way. I’m blaming the sick stomach on stress and the fatigue on…stress.
Anyway, I’m sure one of these days I’ll get around to really saying what’s on my mind, but I just don’t have it in me right now. Sorry. 
Just when you think life is about to settle down, you get thrown right back into craziness!
I have just returned home from spending two nights in the hospital with Erik. Friday he seemed healthy and happy but by Saturday morning, he was miserable. His breathing was awful and the inhaler wasn’t doing the trick. I took him into the emergency room after noon that day, thinking they would treat his asthma quickly with a nebulizer and then send us home. The doctor took one listen to his chest and said it was pneumonia.
How does a child go from healthy and happy one day to having pneumonia the next?! And in the heat of summer, to boot! Anyway, we spent most of the afternoon in emergency and then they admitted him and transfered us upstairs to the ward. Thankfully we had our own room and bathroom – when we stayed in the ICU when he was three weeks old, we were just curtained off and using a common bathroom. I was able to come home that evening to pack clothes and other overnight things (and a bunch of books) so it wasn’t so bad. The worst of it was that he was dehydrated and needed an IV for fluids – but they couldn’t get the IV in. They would get into a vein and then lose it. They tried thirteen times (THIRTEEN!!) to get one in and finally gave up. Something like four different nurses, the doctor and an anaesthetist tried and all failed. In the end, we just gave him pedialyte 5ml at a time every ten minutes or so.
About two o’clock on Sunday morning, he turned a corner and got really thirsty. His breathing improved around the same time, and then got even better a few hours later. My doctor still didn’t feel good about sending him home because he was obviously still struggling to breathe at that point. We spent a very restless Sunday in the hospital, but were able to leave for three hours in the afternoon. Erik then had a three hour evening nap at the hospital, which means I was up fairly late with him last night before he was willing to go to sleep. The first night we were there, they were waking us up every few hours to give him medication of some sort, but last night we were able to sleep through the night without many interruptions.
We left the hospital just before nine this morning, and our doctor said that releasing him at this point was still a “calculated risk”. I have to pay very close attention to him and he’ll have to continue on two different antibiotics and a steroid to open up his airways. If he starts to have any real trouble breathing again, we’ll have to go back into the hospital. By the time we left this morning, he was so antsy! He just wanted to crawl around all over the place, but you can’t exactly let a baby crawl around on hospital floors for very long. Not only that, but the hallway I was on seemed to be full of not so friendly patients and visitors. Most of the people there actually looked like they were quite old and on the brink of death. What a strange thing to throw a baby right into the middle of all that! It comes with the territory, though, I suppose, as it’s not like we have a children’s hospital here.
Anyway, I still have more to say about the last few weeks, but I think I’m going to have to wait for another day. I’m wiped out, incredibly hot (it’s so warm in my house right now!!!) and my house is a wreck from all the running around this last week.
Where do I start?
Here, I suppose.
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind so I’ll just have to do highlights. Part two will probably cover the last week, or might just be rambling about how much I hate cleaning, how hot it is and the frustrating activities of my stomach.
Last week was sick week. My children puked. I puked. My children got pink eye. I did not. (Thankfully!)
Last weekend was “hardly ever home weekend”. We started with a wedding two hours away. We left at nine o’clock Saturday morning and got home at eleven that night. The boys were still sporting a bit of colour on their eyeballs which succeeded in freaking a few people out. We were in the car way too much that day and poor Erik was stuck in a stroller for most of the time when we weren’t in the car. The wedding was outside at the bride’s parents property. Their muddy property. So Erik, who does not walk yet, had to be kept off the ground by his mother who just couldn’t bear to have him all muddy. We went out for supper and he wouldn’t even stay in the highchair, but kept crawling out of it onto the table.
We got to bed so late that night that we decided we’d stay home from church the next day. This is a rare thing for us and it was more than a little bit strange, but it was oh, so nice to stay in bed until ten and not have to rush to get out of the door. We did, however, get out of the door around noon to attend an airshow. Tickets were fifteen dollars per adult and parking at the airport was fifteen dollars also. We thought we’d be smart and save money by parking the van at the arena and taking the shuttle to the airport, which was free. We packed snacks, changes of pants for Elias, earplugs and various other items, but decided not to bring chairs, but to just use blankets on the grass near the airstrip. BIG mistake. The skies opened up and dumped rain on us as we were taking the shuttle to the show. We waited in the airport until it cleared up and then went out to the strip to see what the best course of action would be. We found a spot that looked somewhat dry and put our blankets down. I had Mike put his hand on the blankets to see if they would soak through. No water. So he put his foot on them. And the water gushed up through three layers of fabric. So, I cleverly suggested we lay down our rain jackets and sit on them, assuming that they would be water proof and that we wouldn’t get wet that way. Wow, was I wrong. The kids didn’t seem to care, but I went around the rest of the day with a very wet backside. When we finally gave up and packed up our things to go walk on the paved areas, we found the asphalt warm and dry. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. The show went until nearly five and we made our way to the shuttle pick-up area to catch the bus back to our van. We waited and waited and waited. Thankfully we had friends there who we hung out with and the kids were just having fun, but in the end, we didn’t make it back to our van until nearly seven o’clock. What a long day.
The thing I could have used the most after a week of being sick and a weekend of being insanely busy was a nice calm week of nothing. But this week is VBS at our church and I am in charge of pre-school and kindergarten games. Tomorrow is our last day and it has been quite a week so far. But I think I’ll leave that for part two. Just for the fun of it.
I now have an explanation for why my pain has been so bad for the last few days and why my pain pills haven’t seemed to be working as well. I have an infection in my throat. Obviously, this is not great, but it’s nice that I know why I was hurting and now have antibiotics to clear things up. I should know in twenty-four hours or so how much of the pain is from the infection and how much is just the healing process going on. I also got another bottle of pills that will definitely last me – there are more pills than the last time, so no worries there as I’m sure I won’t need even half of them (I hope!).
When I went out to get my medication, I stopped in at a kids store to look at premie stuff for Noah – no luck there – and found some very cute rubber boots and a dress for Jenny, both for ten dollars. I then went and picked up some stuff at the health food store and went next door to the movie store to look at their pre-played DVDs. They had a whole corner of the store with DVDs that didn’t have covers for $1.99! I got some chick flicks, a few family-type movies, an action movie and three Sesame Street DVDs for the kids. The irony of this is that L.H. was just talking about media and taking a break from it…we will someday, but apparently not quite yet. 
Filed under: Faith, Illness and Injury, Life, in general, Mi familia | Tags: meat, submission, tonsillectomy, vegetarianism
Yesterday I made a painful decision, but one that I feel will be honouring God and my husband. It came to me so randomly that I think it must have been straight from God. I hesitated to commit myself to it, but felt that to keep it to myself would be sinning. Anyway, I’ll explain myself now.
I have been a vegetarian for twelve years now. When I was pregnant with Jenny, I read a book about vegetarian babies and children that reinforced my decision to keep my children from eating meat. Mike went along with it and didn’t complain much except about one issue – the issue of whenour kids could choose to eat meat. When Jenny was about eighteen months, Mike was eating chicken noodle soup and she was practically begging him to have some, so I decided then that she could have chicken – and felt like a total failure. Since then, I’ve sort of kept the kids from eating meat until they were two, and then only poutry (and fish, but I eat fish, too). I certainly got plenty of griping from other people about how silly it was that I wouldn’t let my kids eat meat, but I’ve always tried not to let it bother me. I finally decided a few weeks ago that I would let Jenny eat meat when she turns five – in another year. Yesterday morning when Mike was eating some bacon, he said that we would probably have to let Elias eat it at the same time – which was a very good point. He always wants to do everything his sister does and I know that if we kept him from eating it and let Jenny eat it, he just wouldn’t understand. The thought that came to my mind last night was that maybe it was not very submissive to be making this decision on my own. Some of it is for health reasons, but most of it is honestly because I find meat so gross – so I almost want my kids to feel the same way about it. So I told Mike during supper last night that from now on, it will be up to him when they eat meat for the first time. He agreed with me that they should at least be weaned before they eat it (big sigh of relief there), so Erik won’t be getting any very soon. I will almost certainly face some not very nice comments from people now that I’ve made this decision, but I’m willing to be honest and tell them the reason for it. Maybe it will open other hearts to changes in attitudes between husband and wife. I’m guessing that not many people have our particular situation happening, but I’m sure that there are other things that people clash about and that one should be submitting to the other on. After all, we are told to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21) and although we as wives are told specifically to submit to our husband, sometimes it is husbands who are not God-honouring on one issue or another. Regardless of who it is that needs to submit, we will live with so much more peace when we do submit to each other and refuse to live clashing against one another.
Perhaps part of the decision came about because Mike did something yesterday that he usually doesn’t like to do at all. His parents have a boat and were heading out to the lake after church. I felt like it might be nice for the kids to get to go on the tubes and have a boat ride. Mike isn’t big on boating, but he went with us, drove the boat when needed, and went with both of the kids twice on the tubes. Meanwhile, I was able to relax, take pictures and have a nice time watching my kids have a blast. We were out for three hours, which is a lot longer than we had originally planned for, and in the end the kids didn’t have a nap other than on the drive home, but it was such a great day. Mike’s part in that day made me feel like giving him a gift of sorts, and I think that is what this decision is.
As for my recuperation, I have been in quite a lot of pain the last few days. My pain meds are not working as well as they were, and I suspect that the scabbing in the back of my throat (yeah, I know – gross) is coming off and reforming, so I’m a bit raw because of it. I’ve lost at least eight pounds in the last week and people have even noticed that I look thinner. My face seems to thin out fast when I lose weight, so it’s quite obvious even when it’s not a large amount of weight. I’m basically living on scrambled eggs and tofu, water, the occasional smoothie, and popsicles. I did have half of a veggie chicken sandwich and four or five pieces of asparagus for supper last night – every bite hurt, but my stomach was so happy afterward. If my drugs are working, I have more options for food, but the more solid it is, the more it hurts to swallow. I’m just hoping that I’m able to eat normally by the end of this week, but there’s no telling whether I’ll be able to or not.
I do not wish to make light of drug abuse or addiction -they are real problems and quite frightening. However…
I love my pain pills! I will just be honest and say that I’m not sure I could function without them right now. Yes, they make me silly and drowsy, but when they’re in full effect, I hardly have any pain in my throat. And when I have no medication coursing through my veins, I’m pretty miserable. Like – I avoid swallowing my saliva for as long as possible because it hurts so much. The downside of having a narcotic in my system is that I’m not much use to anyone else. Keeping this in mind, Mike’s grandma is coming over tomorrow to help me with the kids. If I didn’t take anything, I could manage keeping a level head with them, but I’d be in too much pain. If I take something to relieve the pain, I can hardly walk a straight line. With any luck, this will be a whole lot better in a few days.
And I promise – as soon as I’m not in agony, I’ll come off the happy pills. I’ll actually be quite pleased to get back to normal life where antibiotics and pain medications are a thing of the past.
I finally said goodbye to the gigantic nuisances in the back of my throat yesterday.
The good news is that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I expected to wake up from my surgery in screaming pain, but it wasn’t nearly that bad. I went in yesterday morning at seven, spent an hour and a half waiting in a bed with an IV in my hand, they got me in early for surgery and sedated me. The next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery feeling totally bizarre and the clock said it was nearly ten. The first few hours were weird, coming out of the anaesthetic, but my friend was there to feed me ice chips and get me a popsicle. I was pretty sick to my stomach for the first few hours, but it went away without puking. My throat definitely hurt, but I was able to swallow without too much pain and had lots of ice and water, some yogurt and two popsicles in the six hours I was there post-op. I’m probably more uncomfortable today, but my throat looks good – black with white spots is a good thing in this case.
The hardest part is not actual pain - it’s swallowing. I’m supposed to keep my throat really moist, because if it dries out, it could crack and bleed. But swallowing doesn’t just hurt – it feels nearly impossible. I tried to eat mashed potatoes last night thinking they would go down nicely, but in the end resorted to more popsicles. I suspect I’ll be on a popsicle diet for a week or so. I’m sure I can manage smoothies and other liquids as well, so I might try something brothy tonight for a change. The great thing about this is that once I’m healed up, I won’t ever have tonsillitis again! I can still get strep throat, but tonsillitis is worse in my opinion. I also suspect that when I’m recovered, I will have lost at least a little weight due to the weird diet I’m on. I was told to expect two weeks before I really feel completely better and am actually healed. I have things I want to do but I’m going to rest as much as I possibly can for the next two weeks. Mike is off work today and tomorrow and I already had the longest night sleep that I’ve had in a long time. I went into our room to eat a popsicle so that the kids wouldn’t bug me and ended up drifting off after I was done. I decided that it was a good plan to just go to bed and let Mike deal with Erik for a few hours. I went to bed before nine and Erik ended up going to bed easily without nursing and Mike came to bed at ten. Erik was up at one-thirty but spent the rest of the night with us so I was able to sleep pretty soundly. Mike got up with the kids at eight-thirty and I slept until after ten!
I’m going to the pharmacy to pick up some percocet a little later, so any pain should be taken care of. I don’t really like taking pain meds, so I’ll try to only do it for as long as I’m really uncomfortable.
