Three little beggars for Dad's yogurt . . . G, A, B If you thought traveling with 3 relatively healthy toddlers was tough, try having all 3 sick after a week of jet lag. Yes, I am going to milk this for all of the sympathy i can.
I know i have already summarized some of this in the last entry, but it was a REALLY tough week last week. The week after we returned to Doha, Aidan began with a fever and the snots. THat was on Friday. A Sunday morning Dr's appointment for meds to treat his symptoms was without incident. On Sunday night we put everyone to bed with NO OTHER SYMPTOMS of illness. 3 hours later, Brady sounds like a barking seal! the kid is coughing like crazy, breathing really shallowly, has the snots - it was ridiculous. So I took him to the ER where he was the LIFE of the party! playing peekaboo with himself, eating gold fish crackers while they gave him breathing treatments, talking to the nurses, etc. We were sent home a little more tired, but otherwise intact with a plan for breathing treatments to treat HIS wheezing and snots.
Brady does a little spring cleaning . . .Monday, Gavin and Brady begin with fevers, Aidan is still on and off with fevers - they go up. and up. breathign treatments begin for Gavin ( and by this I mean, we have our own nebulizer to help loosen mucus as well as medication to try to reduce the irritation that causes additional coughing, asthmatic or otherwise).
Tuesday night, Gavin is getting a breathing treatment, then has a febrile seizure - to the ER. they reduce his fever and send him home. Wednesday, i stay home to manage everyone's meds - Aidan's first full day without any fever. Thursday, Curt stays home to manage Meds, Gavin's first full day without any fever. THursday night - Gavin is COUGHCOUGHCOUGHING - back to the ER. THe dr. tells me that she feels like he might need to be admitted, but he doesn't have to be since we have a nebulizer at home, but she is worried he may end up back in the ER. We are sent home with more meds, and a breathing treatment plan every hour for 3 hours, then every 2 hours indefinitely. CUrt and I do this RELIGIOUSLY. Keep in mind we now have not slept through the night in 2 weeks.
For once Gavin doesn't knock the blocks down . . .Friday morning, curt and i both feel like we are getting sick. this is the most depressed we have been since having triplets. seriously. i can't even believe this comes out of my mouth: "I miss our life before the kids were sick. I REALLY miss our life before the kids" (when you boys read this one day, know it was said from a place of exhaustion and not from wanting to send anyone back. :) ) breathing treatments every two hours for Gavin continue, and we try to nap as much as we can.
Saturday morning around 5 AM - Gavin is NOT any better. He is coughing up a storm and curt is swearing as he comes back to bed from yet anotehr treatment. Brady is crying b/c he is awake after hearing curt come in and out and we decide i will take Gavin to the Dr. that morning (gotta love weekend hours for dr's here!) and get a long term management plan for what we are now thinking must be asthma. By breakfast curt is feeling MUCH worse - we decide to call Tess and Marie and ask them to come in and help out while i'm at the dr so curt can try to rest at least in the afternoon. By 915AM, the dr has admitted Gavin to the hospital with labored breathing. He says based on what we have been doing, we have done all we could at home and he is now having lowered oxygen saturation. in tears, but also somewhat relieved we head for another chest x-ray and then the room. gavin and i both sleep the whole morning (on oxygen he slept like a CHAMP!). curt brings me stuff to stay the night (thank goodness for tess and marie) and then heads home with a plan to switch at lunch on sunday.
Aidan LOVES wearing hoodies . . . all the time
Sunday, i head into work without a shower after a relatively uneventful night. i am now on the hospital terrorist list after a few run-ins with nursing staff who do not seem capable of understanding that when people are sick, they need sleep and kids struggle with going back to sleep after people keep coming in every 15 minutes for crap they could have done all at once. i'm sure they have a photo of me behind the front desk of the peds floor. i could care less.
sunday night curt is with gavin in the hospital - he is getting better, but still needs oxygen support. curt has a run-in with nursing staff over the IV gavin tried to rip out of his hand. he has now been raised to "person of concern". :) Being home with Brady and Aidan on my own was EASY. Curt and I both decided that having three has an exponential factor going on here - 3 is like having 5. there is no explanation for why it took me UNDER 10 minutes to diaper and put PJs on both of them, and yet it EASILY takes us 20+ minutes when curt and I are both there with all three of them. how does one child add up to an extra 10 minutes???
Monday - Gavin is released before lunch. I end up going to 3 different pharmacies and calling another before i find one with the right antibiotics. for some reason, they write all of your scrips on one sheet, so if the pharmacy doesn't have something, 1) you either can't get reimbursed for it with insurance if it's an OTC thing or 2) you can't get it at all from another place since it's an antibiotic and you need a prescription. what should have been a 15 minute side stop on the way home was nearly 45 minutes of driving and waiting. ANNOYED.
Wednesday post-release check-up, Gavin is doing well. the other two are reaching the end of their snots and coughs. one more week and another check up for gavin.
This is what we did last week. Good thing they are really cute. :)
Aidan and his necklace . . .
