Where Ya Been, EM?

Sorry I haven't been around so much lately. It isn't that I haven't had anything to blog. I had plenty of posts in my head. But there's been so much happening here. The process of sitting down and getting complete, coherent thoughts typed out was just too much to deal with!

When I came home from the hospital we immediately launched into the swine flu with all three younger children. I'm still not sure where they wound up with it. My suspicion is that they picked it up when we were in the doctor's office the previous week with Cornbread. He was diagnosed with pre asthma.

Those were some tiring days as I already blogged about. I had a very rough time recovering physically. Then I broke/dislocated my toe. Normally a little funny if it is only a slight break but not when you're already in pain!

I feel like I am forgetting some other trial that was thrown in there but with our latest it really isn't any wonder. We had quite the scare with LadyBug last week. She complained Tuesday night of a stomach ache but she ate fine and continued to play so I thought nothing of it. She didn't sleep well that night and Wednesday morning she slept late. When she got up she still had the tummyache. I figured we might be facing another virus.

I was feeling a little better and decided to tackle cleaning up the kitchen and cleaning the oven. She was in the living room curled up on the couch. I heard her crying and came to check on her. Cornbread, sensing she didn't feel well, was on the couch with her and she was screaming for me to get him off her, it hurt. The thing is he wasn't on her but was beside her. Just touching her was hurting that badly. I moved him and when I checked her stomach I realized she had a fever (101 and went up to 103). My first thought was appendicitis.

Once the doctor saw her he thought the same thing. But the other 2 doctors who saw her were undecided. When her urine came back abnormal he decided to treat it as a UTI but the told us to keep the possibility of appendicitis in the back of our minds and rush her back if she worsened.

The next day the doctor called to check on her because he was worried about her. At that point her fever was 104 and I was about to call them. It wound up that it was a serious kidney infection. She never did develop any of the normal signs of a bladder infection (burning, urgency, frequent urination). But today was the first day she hasn't had spasms of pain. It has really been an ordeal for the poor baby.

She has never been diagnosed with an infection before. But she has had other symptoms that possibly point to a problem. With the unusual severity of this infection the doctors have scheduled a renal ultrasound and VCUG (where they run dye to check for reflux - urine backs up from the bladder into the kidney) While I hope everything is fine I am thankful they are taking it seriously.

In the midst of all this I've been dealing with infection. Thankfully antibiotics are working so I am better.

Cornbread had seemed to respond well to the medication but over the last few days the wheezing had returned and was happening even more often. I haven't been able to do a lot in the house so it's been a mess, sad to say. Also the dust was getting pretty bad. It doesn't help that my steam cleaner died and my vacuum cleaner was limping along. The handle literally came off in my hand recently LOL! It is 8 years old and I've been unable to find a replacement filter for it so it's demise was inevitable.

Enter tax refund! Thank you. Lord! I now have a vacuum cleaner with washable filters (except for the standard Hepa filter) and a new steam cleaner. Nothing fancy but it will sure get the dust out of the carpet! I'm hoping that will help little guy. If I don't see improvement in the next couple of days I'll be calling the doctor back.

So I've been busy trying to restore order in the chaos. We are all looking forward to orderly, fresh rooms, clean laundry, and some good home cooked meals. ;) Me, I'm looking forward to some peaceful days without the trials and just returning to normal life. Normal....gee, what's that anyway?