The Daily Hailey

I have to say, today was easily the fullest day we’ve had since this whole bout of sickness began. We had a plan for the afternoon, and we knew it would be somewhat busy, but it got quite late without even getting everything done, and we had all of three places to hit. Pretty pathetic, I know, but believe me! None of it had to do with us being slow pokes because of our sickness. The day just went super long!

The house Brady was supposed to be in today is running behind, thanks be to God, so he was off for the day. We could not have survived without him! Once the kids were up and had eaten breakfast, Brady played with them so I could have a much anticipated date with hygiene. I won’t get into details, but it had been a while for a LOT of things, and it felt really really good to get clean. It also helped because we had plans to venture out this afternoon to see the doctor, and with the amount of coughing/gagging/nose blowing going on, there was no point to wear makeup. So this way, at least I’d be clean.

The cleanliness didn’t last long. After nap time, we took our freshly cleaned, dressed, brushed selves to my doctor at our clinic. She was a complete saint and made us an appointment at the very end of her day. We ended up staying for over an hour! Which is nuts, I know, but she is exceptional, and took very careful notes about each and every one of us. A very brief breakdown on the kids reveals that she’s thinking, for the most part, they all have a super duper nasty virus, as we suspected. Today is our first fever-free day in quite some time, so she’s hopeful that this is where our upswing begins. A couple of extra concerns did lie with Laela, however. Her right ear was very red, she said. She said either she’s getting an ear infection, or she may have had one thats working itself out. She said only time will tell. Laela is a very clear communicator and would easily be able to relay to me if her ears hurt, so we wait for that.(She even said that, if we thought she was worsening over the weekend, to call the clinic and have them contact her directly, that she’d have no issue coming and quickly opening the clinic up and checking Laela’s ears. What doctor does that???) But other than that, from some of the history I shared with Dr. Guselle, and some of the coughs she witness, she asked if we were caught up on vaccines. I sheepishly told that we were actually horrendously behind on Rowan, and a little bit behind on Dekker. Something I didn’t know was that there has been a pretty significant outbreak of whooping cough in the last few months, and with Rowan not vaccinated, we are less protected than we could be, anyway. So after we did weights, ear checks, throat checks, neck checks, and lung listens on all of the kids, we tipped them back to laying down positions and I held them down while Dr. Guselle did the dreaded nose swab. Guys, that thing looks AWFUL. Dekker went first and freaked, but his poor dry little nose couldn’t hack it, and it bled. This was completely new and equally as terrifying to Dekker, so I held him close while Dr. Guselle apologized and scrambled to clean him up. (That is how I came to be wearing blood all over my shirt for the rest of the day. “Don’t worry folks, its just from a whooping cough swab gone wrong!”) Laela bounced back from her swab really fast, which was a treat, and Rowan actually did too! Side note on Rowan, while we had him laying down on the table, I pointed out how he popped three new molars in the last week or so, but still hadn’t finished up popping all eight front teeth. But then sure enough, there was the eighth, popped thru!!! That kid has been WORKING!

Once the kids were all swabbed and done, Dr. Guselle asked to check me over a little bit more, mostly my throat. She said my tonsils are perfect and small, all looks good, but then to double checked, she shoved that tongue depressor in there to make me gag, and apparently by doing that, she saw something contract in a certain way that gave her more answers. She said the only thing we can do for me is to suppress my cough, because every time I clear my throat or speak, I’m pissing my throat off more and more, and I wont get better without a suppressant. I’ve never been so happy to gag in my life! She wrote me a prescription, and one for Laela in case her results do come back positive for pertussis, and she said we could go! She offered the kids stickers, and they both picked Clifford. She offered for Rowan, too, but we told her he’d probably just eat it. The last thing she said to us before leaving was encouraging us to get up to date on vaccines. I told her I’d go and make the appointment right then.

When I went to the desk, the receptionist informed me that there was a drop in immunization clinic going on right now, and only one person was ahead of us. Now, normally, we’re very strict on never doing shots if our kids are sick. Ever. But this just needed to get done, and Brady agreed. Why not do all of the damage in one day, right? So we waited. But in the first few minutes of waiting, we heard talk from the desk of their system being down. Thats what kept us waiting probably a good 45 minutes before actually getting in. But when we did, our nurse was exceptional.

I was very embarrassed at how far Rowan was behind in shots, but she was very gracious, and said we could make some of them up. We discussed it, and I decided I was comfortable with it, so we just went for it. Dekker got his shot first. We were very nervous about that, since he hadn’t had any for a while, and he’s not particularly fond of new doctors, and he had already had that bloody (literally) nose swab. But right before she put the needle in, I made sure he could hear me, and I said “Just a little pinch, ok Dekker?” He said “ok” back to me, she counted to five, and it was done. I expected him to explode on her and wail, and he didn’t. He was totally quiet until he realized what had happened, and then he cried. But he just cried in frustration, you could tell, he was right ticked, but he was more than fine. We praised him up and told him how proud we were. I was beaming!! Poor Ro was next and he got one in each arm and each leg!! But he did great, honestly. He cried, and was pissed off, but once he was dressed and being cuddled, he was more than fine. The kids were TOTAL troopers! We all left the doctors office very very impressed with them. Fabulous job, kids!

We were let out by the security guard (apparently we were there late. Oops!) and ran to get the kids some supper. Grilled cheese from McDonalds. They didn’t eat much, but thats just the story of our lives right now. We made a quick pit stop at Costco so I could drop off my script to be filled, and then we drove to see our HOUSE! Not the “lot.” The HOUSE!!

In case you’ve been wondering where the updates are, this is whats been going on at our house this last week!! We’ve had loving friends and family go take a picture for us every single day this week, which is SO wonderful!! But we have a basement! We have floor joists, and some floor sheets on top. We have a power metre, a breaker box, and our first outlet, lol!! Sounds silly, but I’m SO excited!!! I stood in what will be our front doorway today, and saw a whole legitimate basement before me, and it was just flat our incredible. What a pick me up!!!

We drove back to the city, and I grabbed my prescription as well as a few staple items from Costco. We headed home afterwards, and the kids were TRASHED. They’ve been going to be early and sleeping a ton these days, and tonight they went to bed over an hour later than their normal bedtime! Yikes, it was a crazy afternoon and evening.

We were expecting a full blown Costco shop in there with the whole family, but there was not time AT ALL. Yet I don’t feel unproductive. I feel like we did a ton today! Just a lot of big, scary things. I can’t believe the kids are getting checked for whooping cough 🙁 It just makes me feel like crying, like I will have failed so badly if they do have it. But I’m trying not to go there, mainly because it would be an overreaction, and secondly because my throat couldn’t handle the sobbing that would come with it. So we try our best to stay super strong while being as restful as possible, and we pray that we’ll all get well very very soon. If you care to pray for the same for us, please don’t hesitate to do so. It feels like we’ve been paddling to stay above water for so long now, and we’re getting weaker and weaker.

In our weakness, He is stronger!!!