"We might die before the kids get better..."

The above quote is from my sister as we compared notes about who was sick this week at our respective homes. Since mid-October someone has been throwing up, had a fever, had a sore throat, and worse. Cuatro started throwing up again on November 16th and HAS NOT STOPPED!! After two pediatrician visits in one week with no answers it was Thanksgiving weekend and his doctor would not call us back. He woke up Saturday, the 27th, very weak and feverish. Joe tried to perk him up by taking him to his favorite restaurant for lunch but he just sat there and stared at the wall. Those who know Cuatro know that this is so out of the ordinary. So we packed all the kids up and dropped the three girls at Mammy's and went on the ER. To say that I was scared is an understatement. Joe was very calm but I was so worried about what they might find wrong with our son. All sorts of thoughts from cancer to horrible diseases were running through my mind. After having to hold him down to put an IV in and draw blood and another urine sample, Cuatro was admitted to the hospital. He was so confused and unhappy but settled down for the night around 11pm. What a long night that was. The pediatrician on call finally made her rounds at 11pm just as he was falling asleep. It didn't help that she had HORRIBLE bedside manner and kept correcting me and cutting me off mid sentence. I was truly about to say some very unkind things to her face but a friend of ours was there and I couldn't. At midnight, Cuatro finally settled down until the 4am vitals had to be done. At that point, he was up for the rest of the morning. I was so tired when Joe came back to the hospital but still anxious as we still had no answers. I went to see the girls at Mammy's and take a shower and get some things to make Cuatro more comfortable. When I returned to the hospital, they had already taken Cutro for a CT scan of his brain to check for tumors. As a mom, this is one of the last things you want to hear about your child. I think I went numb at that point. Joe stayed with Cuatro that night so that I could tend to the girls and take them home. I wish I could say that this night was calm and we had alot of sleep but it did not happen this way. Someone wet my bed while sleeping with me and Audrey hardly slept since she was getting sick as well. The next morning, I dropped Grace off at school (late) and took Laura (who was running a fever) and Audrey to the doctor (a new one since we fired the last pediatrician due to neglecting Cuatro's case) since she was in bad shape. After getting oil in my car (it had none) and picking up prescriptions and dropping the two sick girls at their Mammy's, I was back at the hospital to relieve Joe at 1pm. After many sweet visitors and more vitals, Cuatro and I were asleep by 10pm. He was sound asleep but I was wide awake due to a tween boy next door who screamed for about two hours because they were trying to take some blood. I know this is painful but if my three year old son can do it with a minimum of screaming, why can't a 12 year old boy? I don't mean to sound harsh, but I could hear the nurses get irritated since the mom was not helping the situation. Needless to say, it was a restless night for me but the nurses left Cuatro alone all night so that he could sleep...a huge blessing. The next day, Cuatro was feeling so much better and we were waiting on the doctor to make his rounds and tell us the test results of the scan and many other tests. He came and said everything was negative and that he thought this had all been a bad virus and that we could go home BUT had to come back if he started throwing up again or hit a fever above 101 again.

We were so happy to be out of the hospital and have all four children under one roof even though two were still sick (Laura and Audrey). And then...Cuatro started limping when we got home and I went way downhill with a high fever and sore throat and ear. We called our doctor and were told to watch Cuatro closely but not to take him back in. That was Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday are a blur since I was down with the virus. Joe took over and several people from church brought meals. Then on Saturday night, Cuatro started throwing up again and would not stop. So Sunday morning we were back in the ER with the mystery virus. After more blood drawn and more tests, we were sent home with no answers. As of today (December 11th) he is still throwing up at night and we are finding a pediatric GI specialist.....and Audrey is running a 103 temperature!! When will it end????

On a side note...Whitney's kids have been sick for the same amount of time as well. I think all of our kids have gone through all three of these viruses and counting....

Is there an institution for mom's who go crazy after dealing with sickness for two months or more??? I might need it come spring.

And it starts.....

So this has been the week from down under and I don't mean Australia. I mean as in H-E-double hockey sticks. We had a great full weekend of activity and a family overnight trip to the ranch. The kids had a ball just playing in the dirt and riding all around on the hunting Jeep. So Sunday afternoon, we loaded our dirty and tired bodies into the car and took off for home 3 hours away. About one hour into our departure, Cuatro throws up all over himself. We are still on a county road so we pull over, clean him and his seat up, and he insists on wearing a new set of clothes. So we dress him again and take off. WELL, 50 minutes later we stop to let us girls take a potty break and Cuatro complains that his tummy hurts again. So I leap into action and throw his straps off and put him over the side of the car and tell him to throw up outside not inside. He smiles and starts playing with buttons on the car and anything else he can get his hands on. I think he is just bored sitting in his car seat and put him back in and we drive off again. Well, not even 5 minutes on the highway and we hear an awful noise and look back to see our son throwing up (exorcist style) about a week's worth of food EVERYWHERE. It did not stop for 2 minutes. I am in shock and Joe is trying to pull over as fast as he can with a huge trailer hooked up to our car. I am trying to find paper towels and Clorox wipes and Joe is telling me to get Cuatro out of the car. So I open my door to the tallest grass I have ever seen and refuse to step out---hello!!! snakes live in this kind of stuff. So Joe gets out and gets our son out and I vainly try to clean him and his seat up. We stripped our sweet three year old on the side of I-35 and I give up on the seat and tell Joe to get it out of the car and on the trailer. We put Cuatro in our back-up booster and a new diaper and go on our merry way. And I had the privilege of sitting next to him the rest of the way holding a plastic bag in case there was another episode. He promptly fell asleep about five minutes after we got back on the road and he had chosen Barbie and the Diamond castle to watch on the DVD. So fast forward to Wednesday at 4am where Laura starts throwing up. Here we go again!! Well, I still had to get Grace and Cuatro to their respective schools by 7:30 and 8:25 respectively. So everyone is ready to walk out the door and Laura throws up all over the floor. SO I clean it up and send her to the other house (Joe's office) to stay with her daddy until I return because there DID NOT need to be any more puking in the car. Needless to say, we are so late at this point to drop Grace off. The policy for being tardy is to have your parent walk you into the school office and sign you in. Well, I tell Grace this when we park at her school and she says, "really, you have to come in and bring these two in too (these two are Cuatro and Audrey)?". I looked at her in shock because I saw in her eyes that she was embarrassed to be seen with us!! It didn't help that I was in workout clothes and a ponytail and no makeup. I might have looked like death warmed over but I was her mama. I went through 37 weeks of throwing up, swollen feet, a rare all-over-body rash for her and then endured a 15 hour labor on top of that. And she wanted nothing to do with me or her little brother who is now shouting, "I get to go to school!!" at the top of his little lungs. Or her sweet, innocent, adorable 8 month old sister who was by this time wailing. I just don't see how we are embarrassing??? Nonetheless, I drag everyone out of the car and walk slowly to the office. All the while my sweet Grace is walking far behind us while Cuatro is running full force to the first open door so excited because he thinks he is going to Kindergarten (think this is going to end badly???). We get to the office, I sign her in and she gets her hall pass. I then ask a really dumb question which was, "Would you like us to walk you to your classroom?". And she said, "No, I can go by myself." And she quickly runs off (her class is a few feet from the office). So I watch her go and try not to cry and then tell Cuatro that we have to go. Well, you might have guess what happened. It wasn't pretty. There was a three year old jumping up and down, crying, and screaming that he didn't want to leave and that he was five and a half and can go to Kindergarten. I reminded him of his field trip and his friend Carson being at his school and all was right with the world and we walked to the car without further incident. But my mommy heart was a little sad as I drove off. Five years old is way too young to be embarrassed by your family, right? I thought so too. Oh Grace, I love you dearly and I hope that one day we don't embarrass you---that might be a really big stretch though.

P.S. As I was writing this, I was interrupted by Laura throwing up once again. I resumed my story once I got that "crime scene" cleaned up:) AHH, the endless joy of being a mommy.