Sick Lil Bug

So, on Thursday I woke up to Bug throwing up. She got sick a few times, rolling around, writhing in pain. "Mom! I don't feel good! My tummy hurts! I feel like I'm going to throw up!" I did a lot of hair stroking and holding until she fell asleep. At that point in time she had a tiny spot on her cheek. Nothing to really worry about, it was just a small red spot on her cheek. I thought it was something from her getting sick. She took a nap for about an hour and a half and I noticed the spot was getting bigger. I was trying to look at it without waking her up, unsuccessfully. She started complaining that it itched, so I put some calamine lotion on her face and then she started crying, saying that it burned and she wanted it off. During that time, the rash was spreading more. A trip to the doctors office was in order. We get to the office and they're closed for lunch, so, we went to get some ourselves. When we came back we were seen right away. Our favorite Doctor was on duty, he also reminds me of Dr. Burke from Season 1 of Greys Anatomy as well. He thought that she was having some sort of allergic reaction. She had a shot of cortisone and a script. He said that if she wasn't dramatically better by Saturday, that he wanted to see her back on Saturday. With that I made an appointment for my physical, grabbed Bugs scripts and headed to the pharmacy. For the remainder of the day, I dealt with "Mom it itcheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssss!!" and trying to keep cool compresses on it because the Calamine lotion just made her face burn. The more time passed, the more that the rash spread. It was just a small spot on her face, and then it was almost her entire face, then it started to spread to her neck, arms, trunk, and legs.

The next day, Friday, it was MUCH worse, and so I took her back to the doctors office. That Dr wanted to give her a shot of Augmentin, and she's allergic to Penicillin!! So, needless to say, I didn't trust anything that he had to say, and decided that I was going to take the nurses advice, and go to the Emergency Room. While sitting there, she developed a spontaneous nose bleed, and it was bad! We finally get in and from there we wait for about 4 hours for the Doctor to come in and see us. I'm not blaming the Doctor for not being able to see us faster, but, if the hospital had more Doctors in the ER, we might not have had to wait that long. I know that it wasn't a true emergency, but, she was listed as a level 3 emergency, not a 4! I could only imagine how long we would have waited if she was a 4! (For those that don't know, Emergency rooms have "levels" and depending on the Emergency room, you might have to go somewhere else! A level 1 emergency is pretty much you're hanging on to life by a thread, and a level 4 is them saying "You should have went to a regular doctor.") The Doctor did give us a script for a medication that would help her stop itching, and it worked better than just regular Benadryl. We figured out that it works better than Benadryl because she would fall asleep about 30-40 minutes after she took it! How's that for itch relief?!

Saturday began at 6AM with Bug waking me up (she slept with us) saying "I have a headache, and I'm really itchy!" and she woke up with the entire side of her face being swollen and puffy! Alrighty! She's going to see the Dr again with me. I get up and get ready to go about 8:45, pulling Bug out of bed. I asked her if she wanted to put on some clothes and she said no. So, off to the Doctors office we go, with her in her jammies and unbrushed hair. (She has a very sensitive head and all the writhing in pain had left her with a knot in her hair that took me 25 minutes to brush out) Our favorite Dr was there again, and he was very concerned about Bug. He ordered some blood tests for her (and for me to check my cholesterol) to see if anything would show up in her blood. When we got to the hospital (again) for our blood tests, Bug decided that she had to pee, so, I let her, not thinking about the urine sample that they might need! (They did need one) From there we had to bribe her with "hospital dollars" and cake to let the nurse take her blood. She watched the Phlebotimist draw my blood, and of course she had trouble finding the vein, so it was a lot of hunting and rooting around in my arm with the needle! Then it was her turn. She did a fantastic job! Then, "Here's a cup, we need a sample" YIKES! It took an hour to get the urine sample. After we came home, we had lunch and took meds. It was a good thing, because she was starting to get itchy again. We watched some "old skool" cartoons (Aahh!!! Real Monsters, Rocko's Modern Life, and Rugrats... ahhh the memories!) for a while, and then a movie. Bug started getting itchy again around 6:15, which was time for her meds again anyways. She started saying that her head hurt, and so we went to go lay down in our bedroom. I had a massive headache as well, so we finally fell asleep around 7, and woke up this morning around 8. What a weekend!

Today, we're making a banner for my best friends husband! He will be home late Monday night and she's decorating their home fence like you see all the fence in front of Camp LeJeune decorated. We're all making one to say "Welcome Home!" I'm so glad that we're making these. I know some people that won't be able to make these. It breaks my heart. I think that we'll make a big one, and paint "Welcome home!" And then all put our hand prints on it, and sign it as well. I think that's all for today. I'm going to go into the office tomorrow and hopefully have some test results for Bug!

Home From Vacation!!

So, we had a great time on vacation. Tho it was a crazy crazy ride I tell you!

Thursday(22July) Mom called and said that because of Tropical Storm Bonnie, that she thought that we should leave on Friday (23July) instead of Saturday like we had originally planned. While this was a fantastic idea, it was sort of last minute for me. I was going to do a bunch of laundry on Friday and leave on Saturday. This left me in quite the predicament! That meant that I needed to go home (we were out having dinner) and pack for our entire family!

We get on the road after I couldn't sleep all night and finally went to bed at 3AM. We drive all day, and get to Montgomery Alabama about 9 that night in th pouring rain. needless to say I crashed and burned that night in my discounted (plus free upgrade!) LaQuinta room! I don't remember much of the room, other than the kids jumping all over the beds while watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars until my eyelids closed and then there was peaceful darkness!

The next day we get back on the road for another 10-12 hours of driving. I must say, the drivers in Texas are CRAZY! The road conditions are FANTASTIC! I just couldn't get over how their lane markers were the little reflectors! Then it started raining when I was pulling into my moms town. I was not exactly happy! I WAS happy to finally be off the road for a while.

We got to visit with family which was totally awesome. We went to the Houston Space Center which was also awesome. We got to go swimming every day in Moms pool. We all got tans. Some of us more than others. Sam and Bug are darker complected than Monkey and I, so, they totally got darker than us! Monkey and Sam both got Swimmers Ear, tho Sams' was MUCH worse! I think one of my favorite days of the trip was when we all went to IKEA! Sam has decided that he likes it, which makes me about the happiest person in the entire universe! Why, might you ask? Because IKEA is just about my favorite place to be. I could spend an entire years salary there and not blink an eye! (Which isn't exactly a good thing...) I've found all kinds of things that I want to do with the house now! (More on that another day!) Bug lost 2 teeth, and the Tooth Fairy brought her $9 in total. (Inflation is CRAZY these days!!)

We then drove from Houston to the Memphis area to visit my sister. There Kris and I chatted, and picked up some steaks for dinner that night. Kris told me that my steak was too rare and I thought that it was just perfect! The kids got to go to the skating rink. Monkey and Bug weren't exactly graceful, but, Bug had fun but her "tooshie" hurt afterwards!

From there we left to drive home. We finally got home around 2AM. We walked in and had a small reunion with the doggies and fell asleep snuggled in our own beds. I'm sure that I'm missing HUGE chunks of what happened, but there will be more another time!

Vacation!!

So, I know I haven't posted in a while, but I have a real, honest-to-goodnes, excuse!!

I've been in Houston helping my parents move into their new house!! We've all been having a lot of fun here. The kids have been swimming every day. monkey even has some tan!! Bug thinks about walking outside and has a tan, so her having a tan is not newsworthy. Sam has swimmers ear because he's been out in the pool every day with the kids, splashing. swimming, and having general fun in the water. He even lost his wedding ring out in the lawn because of tossing them around!! I've been busy with the Koi pond. It doesn't seem like anybody really took very good care of it before my parents moved in.It's full of algae and nastiness! I've been trying to talk her into going to Lowes and getting a UV filter. She wants to try some Pleco fish first.  I think it would just be better to use the UV Filter! LOL