One VERY sick girl!!!

This update is long overdue! Where shall I even begin?

I'll start by saying that school is going well for the kids. They both are making good grades...straight A's to be exact! Tuesday was Open House at school and we really enjoyed the opportunity to be able to go in and see Ethan's classroom and see the stuff he has been working on. Unfortunately, Emily's teacher had gone home sick that day and so we were unable to go to her room, but that allowed us extra time with Ethan's teacher. Ethan was very excited to show us everything that they are working on in there and he showed us where he sits. His teacher showed us his stack of papers that have been graded so far and she showed me how the grading system works and how it will be marked if there is something that needs to be worked on. I asked her how he is doing with everything and she kind of rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, please! He doesn't need help with anything right now." In fact, he is so good in math that she is able to use him to pair him up with some of the kids that don't do as well in math and he helps them when they play these little math games. That made me very proud. I was so happy that we had the chance to go there that evening and see all that he is doing.

Now I need to talk about some of the illness stuff that we are dealing with. As I have mentioned before, we are constantly dealing with Emily's headaches. I feel like I get calls all the time from the school about them. I even had to pick her up from school on Tuesday (the day of Open House) because of a headache. By the time she got home, though, the headache had passed and she was fine. I did make sure, though, that she did not have a fun day at home because I didn't want her to think that she could ever use her headache as an excuse to get out of school. Well, I was surprised when I got a call on Wednesday saying that Emily needed to be picked up AGAIN. She came home and it was very obvious that her head was hurting her pretty bad. She spent most of the afternoon laying on the couch with a trash can in front of her. It seemed as if she was having one of her typical shunt headaches like she gets. I even decided that we couldn't wait until the 16th for her MRI and EEG to get answers. I called the hospital and had her appointments moved up to the 10th. Later that night she took a sudden and drastic turn for the worse. Within an hours time, Emily spiked a fever of 102, she started vomiting, and she started to have this raspy cough. My heart sank and I thought for sure that she had the swine flu. We immediately went through the house and started disinfecting everything and we made sure that Ethan stayed away from Emily, although I knew that we were all already exposed if she did have it. Throughout the night I got up and checked on her and I even put the baby monitor back in her room to listen for her. By the next morning (Thursday) all of her symptoms were gone except for a fever. She was even up playing and acting totally fine. The fever just wouldn't go away. Even on Tylenol and Motrin, her fever never got below 100. I just thought she had some weird virus that needed to run its course and I couldn't really see the need to go to the doctor because she didn't have any other symptoms. She went to bed Thursday night feeling good except for a low grade fever. I kept the monitor in there, though, just in case. Boy am I glad I did. By midnight everything changed. She started getting very sick again. I heard her moaning and calling for me in a very raspy sounding voice. She had a horrible cough and was wheezing. She complained that her throat was hurting. Her fever was spiking back up to over 102 again. And she just wanted me to hold her and be near her. This went on all night. I started getting worried again about the possibility of the flu. I was able to get her an appointment pretty early this morning. Thank goodness the flu test and the strep test came back negative. The doctor heard so much crackling in her chest. He said that he could send her for a chest x-ray, but that he said he really didn't feel like there was a need to. He was going to treat her the same way regardless of what the results were because even if it didn't show pneumonia just yet, he was quite certain that it would turn into pneumonia if he didn't treat it. So, Emily is being treated for pneumonia. We immediately went to go pick up her antibiotic. We left the doctor's office with her feeling pretty good. She was even kind of skipping out of the office. Just the amount of time it took for the pharmacy to fill the prescription was the exact amount of time it took for Emily to spike another fever and become VERY sick again. I had to carry a very limp and very hot child out to the car. When we got home she vomited up the popsicle that she ate at the doctor's office. I thought that she got that out of her system and maybe she could keep the Motrin down long enough to get her fever down. I gave her the Motrin and her antibiotic. After about 15 minutes, I had a nasty orange and white vomit goo all over my couch. And just in case anybody is wondering, Lysol Disinfecting Wipes are not intended to clean leather furniture. Not only do they remove the vomit and germs, they also remove the brown leather from the couch. So, I hope that everybody learns that lesson from my mistake.

I think I am starting to not like holidays. Last Christmas Ethan had a horrible case of pneumonia and really should have been hospitalized. Ethan WAS hospitalized during Memorial Day weekend and we missed out on Family Camp. And now Emily has pneumonia during Labor Day weekend and the kids will miss out on the last chance to use their Waterville passes. They sure have had to deal with a lot of disappointment in their lives.

I am editing this post because I forgot to add one very important piece of information. Ethan started his allergy shots this week. He got his first set of shots on Monday. I was waiting for him as soon as school let out with the Emla cream in my hands. While we were still standing on the steps of the school, I rubbed the cream all over his upper arms. We then headed out to Pensacola for his shots. He was a little nervous, but he knew he had the cream on to numb the spots, too. It was time for the shots and he was so brave. He nervously held out his first arm and the first needle went in. He instantly had a smile on his face and was so excited because he couldn't feel a thing. He kept talking about how simple and easy that was and he turned around to get the next shot. Ethan stood there smiling and held out his other arm to the nurse. She stuck in the needle and...OUCH!!!!!! Ethan screamed and jerked his arm away which caused the needle to scrape across his arm. He started to cry and the nurse got all flustered. Then Ethan accused me of not putting the Emla cream in the right spot. Shame on me!!! Ethan then had a nice scratch across his arm as a souvenir from that shot.

We were supposed to go for his second set of shots on Thursday, BUT it didn't happen. As I mentioned earlier, Emily was home sick from school that day running a fever. I also got a call from the school nurse that day because the principal told her to call me and let me know that Ethan has now been exposed to the flu. Ethan's teacher has a confirmed case of the flu. Well, I called the allergy clinic to see if they wanted us there considering the fact that Ethan has been exposed to illness at home as well as at school and they said to STAY AWAY!!!! Ha-ha!!!! If you think about it, every single person in that office is there because they have respiratory problems. The last thing you want is to bring somebody in who is possibly been exposed to and could be contagious with the swine flu. And after talking with our pediatrician today, I was told that if ANYBODY has the flu right now, it is the swine flu. So, Ethan's teacher does in fact have the swine flu. I just wonder how long it will be before he gets it.