croup

Croup: "a throat condition, occurring usually in children, characterized by a hoarse cough and laboured breathing, resulting from inflammation and partial obstruction of the larynx." For some reason, the main side effect of croupe: a bark-like cough, isn't listed in the definition. I don't agree with this definition. The bark cough defines the illness.

Yep, our kids have croup and they are miserable. So sad and miserable. High fever, no energy, hurts to cough, hard to breathe, no appetite, feeling crummy, etc etc etc.

I love them so much and want them to feel better! Looks like we'll be dealing with this through the weekend, and that's a BUMMER.

So while the kids are sleeping, I will too. Because I doubt they will sleep through the night. The coughing will be back, and the fever too. Poor babies.

Aunt Susan

My mom called late last night with the news that Aunt Susan passed away suddenly yesterday. She didn't have any more details yet.

Mom has to break the news to Grandma today. Which would be terribly difficult regardless, but Grandma's memory issues are going to make this even harder for Mom.

RIP Aunt Susan. We love you.

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Still Sick

I can only imagine how unentertaining (yes, that's a word. I googled it, ok?) it must be to check in and see updates on how sick my kid is. I'm probably giving myself way too much credit here, actually. Thinking that anyone comes here to be "entertained". Maybe all y'all do want are updates... I don't know.

Whatever.

Addison is still VERY sick. Saturday night her fever got to 104 under the arm. Isn't that like 105? Yikes. She woke up today with fever (only 101 this time) so I took her in to the doctor. She now has a sinus infection and an ear infection. She is MISERABLE. I just feel so badly for her. I wish there was something I could do to help her. I feel so helpless. It's just so sad all around.

Thrush Update

The disclaimer from my previous post (see below) applies to this post as well.

First of all, thrush is the worst ever. It's so painful. I don't know what it feels like for Aiden, but I do know that it friggin KILLS me.

So, we are treating two ways:

1. Gentian Violet. We got it at People's Pharmacy. It's messy, but supposedly more effective than the Nystatin and Difulcan prescribed by our doctors. The first time we tried out gentian violet, I applied it to my breast before feeding him. This is how that little experiment turned out:



Feeding is very uncomfortable for both of us right now, so he pulls off often, and with the gentian violet on the boob, it ended up all over his face. The good(ish) news: it does wear off. Slowly. This is how it looked last night (we took a little walk. I was praying we wouldn't run into any neighbors.)



2. One day of the mess, and I was over it. I picked up our prescriptions. No more gentian violet for us, thank youverymuch. Welllllll, that is until tonight, when I was in so much pain, I decided I'd "double up" and do both treatments for us. Tonight, I swabbed his mouth with the violet before feeding, which was much less messy. Now his face has a tint of lavendar, and only his mouth is super purple.

Oh my goodness, I hope this goes away soon. Don't want to have to do the gentian violet again. And want to be able to feed sweet Aiden pain free!!

Thrush

Disclaimer: I really don't know who reads this. But if you don't want to hear about breastfeeding and more specifically, my breasts, stop now.

Aiden and I have Thrush. Yuck.

I was wondering why Aiden wasn't feeding well. He kept pulling away from the boob and seemed really uncomfortable. It wasn't just at feeding time that he had been fussy, he's just generally been more fussy all together for the past couple of days. So, upon further review, I noticed some white spots in his mouth today. And started to realize "my breasts have been uncomfortable (read: itchy and burning) lately". I looked thrush up online and excessive gassiness in infants is a symptom too. And, boy, has poor Aiden woken up with bad gas pains lately.

I'm calling the doctor tomorrow. Poor baby. And yes, poor mommy. (see above paragraph, fifth sentence).

Edited to add (because I am a sleep deprived gal who meant to include this in the original post):

I feel like crap. Started last night. Achey, yucky, fever, headache, etc. Today my mom calls and tells me she might have strep throat. And who did I go visit yesterday evening? You guessed it! My mom. So I'm hoping that I just feel yucky and that it's not strep, but if I still feel bad tomorrow I'm calling my doctor.

Bummer

BIG Bummer.

Addison was supposed to start swim lessons tomorrow, and we were told today by her doctor that she can't swim for at least two weeks.

Rewind... we went to the doctor because...

Addison has been putting her finger in her left ear for a while now "getting the wax out". We kept telling her not to put anything in her ear, even her finger, but something was clearly bothering her, as she kept on doing it. A few days ago, she was swimming and got accidentally kicked in the ear, and ever since then has been periodically complaining that it was hurting.

We took her in today, and they couldn't see anything in the ear because there was so much fluid in the front of the ear canal. So they had to irrigate her ear, to get a better look. The most TRAUMATIC PROCESS EVER, according to Addison. She HATED it. After that, she was hysterical, complaining that her ear hurt. (up until that moment in the office, she was very calm, and said her ear didn't hurt at all). Aaaaaanyway, after the irrigation, the doctor saw more fluid, some inflammation and some blood. She couldn't tell why or what was really going on, couldn't even tell if her tube was still in place, there was so much going on in there, but prescribed some drops that she said would cover a variety of issues that could be contributing to the pain.

Oh, and she told us no swimming for two weeks.

Addison didn't really understand that swim lessons started tomorrow, so she's not affected by this. (effected? GAH, I can NEVER get those two straight). But I am SO, SO, SOOOOOO sad that she will miss these. I just knew how much she was going to love them, and also how good for her they were going to be.

Waah waah waah. Boo hoo. I'm sad.

Anna

My good friend in High School, Anna Chrouch, passed away this week. I hadn't spoken to Anna since graduation. Some stupid fight, I don't even remember... but we never recovered, then went our separate ways. I don't know the cause of death, and am so saddened by the loss of a life- so young, a friend who was so dear to me in school.

I used to drive Anna to early drill team practice every day before school. Most of my memories of our times together were laughing and singing in the car. We had the exact same taste in music. There are two songs that will always remind me of Anna, forever and always. "Losing My Religion" by REM and "Lightening Crashes" by Live. We had these silly interpretive movements that we "danced" while singing in the car. I still do these movements in my head whenever I hear these songs.

Addison went with me to the funeral this morning. I tried to get her to wear a dress "like Mommy" but quickly discovered that if I wanted a happy, reasonable daughter during the service, she would need to wear one of her tutus. So, she wore a tutu to the funeral. Go figure. I told her before hand that we would have to be very quiet, and that we would probably see some very sad people, people crying. She did really well. About half way through the service, it dawned on me that she attends Chapel at school every week, so she is used to sitting quietly in a church. Her teachers call it "God's house". So I reminded her that we were in God's house, and that helped keep her quiet for the remainder of the service.

Such a tragedy. I am glad I was able to pay my respects to her and her family. Even though some silly fight drew us apart, she was always dear to me.