It all started about 3 weeks ago when Graham knocked his upper right lateral tooth out of place on the edge of a cup. How lucky we are to have so many dentists living in our ward? Within a few minutes we not only had one, but two dentists at our door. Fortunately, one of the dentists in our ward had a dental school colleague visiting him from out of town so he tagged along. After examining the tooth they determined that with force they could push it back into place. Talk about torture watching your kid struggle as they pushed his tooth back into it's spot. The next day we made an appointment with the pediatric dentist and had x-rays done on his tooth. Luckily no root damage occurred, but we do need to keep our eye on it to see if any nerve damage was done (this can't be detected on x-rays, but is only apparent over a period of time-- sometimes up to 6 months before you know for sure). He may have killed the nerve or damaged it to the point where his tooth will die and eventually fall out, but we won't know for some time. We're just happy no damage was done to the permanent tooth!
Then a couple of days later Graham caught some sort of respiratory virus that forced us back into a pretty regimented routine with his nebulizer. It seems as though any time Graham catches the simplest of colds it turns into an all out wheezing sickness that is only remedied by his breathing treatments. Usually his asthma is exacerbated by any illness so we have to keep our eye especially on that.
Then I started to feel a bit ill myself. Sore throat, achy body and wheezing myself, but I just kept ignoring it, thinking it would eventually go away. After about 1.5 weeks of wheezing through the night I finally decided that I needed to see a doctor. At this point, Tim was out of town on a business trip-- he was presenting at a conference in Baltimore, Maryland. I couldn't breath all that well and unfortunately my inhaler was completely empty so into Walgreens I went to pick up a new one. Once there I found out they don't sell over the counter inhalers anymore. After a few phone calls I finally was able to get a hold of my dad to prescribe me a new one and $50 later I went home with inhaler in hand. That was an extremely rough night. I kept telling myself I would make an appointment in the morning, because Tim was gone in Maryland and I would have to find a sitter for the kids-- and I wasn't about to call anyone at 3am to do so. So for the remainder of the night I sat in bed wheezing, not sleeping and finally fell asleep from 4:30am-6:00am, when Miles woke up (which is extremely early for him-- he usually sleeps in until 8:30am). So up for the day I started to think of anyone that I can burden with my kids so I can make a trip down to Urgent Care. Finally around 9am I get a hold of my dear friend, who is battling her own illness with pregnancy hyperemsis. But, being the sweety she is she graciously took them for 3 hours. While at the doctors office I could barely breath-- I felt as though I was breathing through a straw. What felt like a 3 hour wait to see the doctor, was only 30 minutes. Once in the back room the doctor could tell I was in no good shape. He immediately put me on a breathing treatment due to the amount of wheezy he heard in my lungs. Seriously, I have never felt so awful in my life! Then, he took me back for a chest x-ray where they discovered I had pneumonia in my right lung. If pneumonia had presented itself in the other lung the doctor said he would have admitted me to the hospital, but he felt I would do fairly well on steroids and Albuteral at home. Back to Walgreens to drop off/pick up MORE prescriptions, then to pick up the kiddos at my friends house.
Once we got home, Miles immediately started complaining of his "stomach feeling cold". He was bent over at the waist and before I could ask him if he wanted a drink or a snuggle he spewed a load of vomit onto the kitchen floor. Great! Now my kid is sick with the stomach flu and a 101 temperature! Any parent knows how awful it is to see your kid in pain-- much more worse than being in pain yourself. After some cleaning up, snuggling, and coaxing I was able to get both kids upstairs for nap time. With Miles finally in bed, wincing and complaining of his stomach pain, I was changing Graham's diaper to discover this lovely rash behind his knees had gotten worse. He's always had dryer patches, but NEVER this red. It appears the cortisone cream I had applied earlier in the day to combat some of the pinkness BURNED the entire top layer of his skin off where the rash was present. It was bleeding, it was blistery. I felt awful! I made it worse with the cream! Graham didn't want me touching it, but I managed to slather a good amount of Aquaphor on it so he could at least sleep with some hydration behind his poor little knees.
I call the pediatrician and luckily they're able to see us at 6pm that day so back into the doctor's office we go, to find out Graham has a bad case of eczema and by this time it's spread to his stomach, armpits, elbow creases, ankles and butt cheeks, and face. I thought he could have possibly had chicken pox. It was actually a relief to discover that some prescription cream could help clear this up, but it would most likely be something he deals with for years to come. *sigh* There could be worse, I suppose. Again, to Walgreens for the forth time in two days. The pharmacist actually recognized me and commented on our sick little family.
So there you have it! Our horrible, awful, rotten, no good three days without daddy! Luckily, Tim was able to board a flight on stand-by that night. I feel awful he missed his last day at the conference, but I'm glad he didn't miss his presentation and he was super excited about how it went. So at least some good came of those few days!
Undoubtedly this is how we all get sick, I'm sure. Graham loves to give kisses through the slimy boogery plastic bubbles at the park! YUCK! I hope this post didn't come off as too complainy. I really am grateful that this type of stuff doesn't happen often. We're generally pretty healthy peeps, but when it hits us it hits hard.
