Catch! (up)

Ok, I'm ready. Are you?

This might be a long one, so consider yourself warned.

I think the best place to start is March 5. March 5 started as a seemingly innocent enough day and then it all changed when Bug went to bed. She woke up barking about 1 hour after falling asleep. I followed the Croup to-do of taking her outside in the cool air to ease her cough, didn't work, tried the steamy bathroom, didn't work, tried the humidifier, didn't work. In fact things were getting worse and so we loaded up and went to town. 15 minutes later and she's doing much better. Instead of going to the hospital we drive around town a bit and then decide we're really tired and start to go home. We get to the top of the mountain and WHAM! back to the old stuff again. That's it we're going to the hospital. We arrive at 12am and are there until 2am. They give her some steroids to open her throat and a breathing treatment. She is doing much better and we go home. I camp out on the living room floor with her next the humidifier. Saturday morning we wake up and she's doing good but does have a little cold. The hubba bub and I go to pick up a wooden swing set that we bought for $100 off of CL.

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The swing set is finally painted and up. Bug LOVES it! Now we just have to get some wood chips to go around everything. (Another thing to add to the to-do list)

 

My mom watches Bug and she slept most of the time we were gone. It wasn't restful sleep though because she would cough and wake herself. When we get back Bug looks sick, but she's running around, playing, and joking. We eat dinner at Mom's and then come home. Bug's breathing is labored and we put her next to the humidifier. That seemed to help and we all cuddle up in our room in our bed. I wake in early morning of Sunday (~3am) and see that Bug is back to having labored breathing. I hold her next the humidifier some more and we go back to bed. When we wake up at 6am she is once again having labored breathing, and we decide that enough is enough and take her into the ER. Let me try to paint a picture for you of what it looked like when she was breathing... Her chest would puff up, her diagram sink in and the little spot on her neck would be sucked in so much. She was trying so hard, but not it seemed like she wasn't getting much air....Back to the hospital...They gave her some more steroids (the same kind they gave before which are supposed to be good for 36 hours), and more breathing treatments. At 10:00 they said that she needed to be admitted and would have to be transferred to another hospital because they don't take care of pediatrics. 1 hour later an ambulance arrived (which we questioned if we actually needed and they said that if we didn't they'd start a FILE on us because of parental poor judgement) and Bug and I took a ride in the ambulance to the next hospital (1.5 hours away).  When we arrived the sweetest nurses and doctors checked us in and explained what was going to happen to us; they were going to keep us and do an RSV test as well as continue to monitor her oxygen levels. Bug was great. You could tell she wasn't feeling good, but she was still really good. The only time that Bug would ever be a problem was at night when she was extremely tired and couldn't sleep because she'd cough too much to sleep. Sunday night was no different. It felt like an eternity. Monday came and Bug was doing MUCH MUCH better. (We didn't receive any treatments or medicine while at the new hospital- she got better by herself!) We were discharged at around 3pm with a follow up appointment scheduled on the 10th with her pediatrician and an appointment in May to see a pediatric pulmonologist. FINALLY we were able to sleep Monday night.

 This is what we do with a sick "baby" in recovery at our house. Let her wear what she wants, how she wants and play with bubbles!

Then something happened on Tuesday. Bug woke up crying and was unsoothable. She kept tugging at her ear and saying "Ow." Oh and did I mention that her eye was pink? As the day progressed so did her ear ache and pink eye.

 I think this pictures explains it all pretty good.

I didn't make an appointment because we were going the next day. Wednesday we headed to the doctor and had a confirmed case of pink eye and our first ear infection ever! (There's a milestone) We were sent home with some medicine to give her twice a day for ten days.
    Bug was getting better and one day we got a phone call from her doctor saying that she was able to reschedule the pulmonologist appointment sooner as in one week away! One week later we are on our way to Albany Med to see the pediatric pulmonologist. This guy was AWESOME!  He was funny, professional, and great for the kids. He explained that she will most likely grow out of it and he wanted to start us on a nebulizer once a night until June 1st and then start back up in September because of how fast the Croup comes on in her case (without any warning signs). She has been doing really good with the treatments and looks so cute with her little mask on. (Pictures to come)


In other news....

I have been SUPER swamped with grad school work and preparing for the state tests in April (8th grade ELA) and June (11th grade Regents) for regular work. I really can't stand state tests and usually don't worry too much about them, because I am really hard on my kids when it comes to their writing and reading (oh do we read A LOT!) This year I am freaking out because as I mentioned in one of my quick posts that cuts are being made this year. I am the only English teacher, but the way things are going, it looks like if someone doesn't like you it doesn't matter what your job is; you're outta there! The good news is that I'm really well liked around the place. I really don't want to go into too much details over what is going on right now (to protect myself once again), but one day there will be a time and place for this whole can of worms.

Something we can talk about...

It all started with my genius idea to make over Bug's room. I started popping off those annoying drywall seamers and started plastering. Her room has been a MESS since the project began, and I think it is fair to say that the project is moving quite SLOWLY! Most of the time the door is shut: out of sight out of mind. To my defense though... I had ran out of plaster and living outside of civilization had to wait until Monday to get some more, then I couldn't do it during the week. The weekend would come and the weather would be too crappy to work without proper ventilation.

 This is how it has been for about 3 weeks now. Don't see the mess? That's because I cropped most of it out. I'm sneaky like that. ;)

FINALLY we have nice weather again and I am thinking that I should finish the last bit of sanding and primer today so that I can work on painting tomorrow.

Oh and did I mention in there that part of the reason I fell so behind is because I would randomly pick up another project and start working on that? For example...painting the trim around the windows in the living room so that I can hang the new blinds? The problem: I now have to paint the rest of the trim in the living room and prime and paint the walls. C'mon over to the house of many projects all of which are works in progress.

And then there is the sewing/fabric side of me... 

Those projects will have a post all to themselves (like they deserve) :P