It all started with a small cough and a runny nose and Eli's 9 month check-up. Great! We thought...he has a doctor's appointment scheduled anyway, we can kill 2 birds with one stone and get this cold checked out as well as get his 9 month stats. WRONG! We should have known better right there. What started as the "common cold" by the end of that week turned into an upper respiratory infection and double ear infections. Then what started as daddy not feeling well turned into the flu... and THEN what turned out as mommy's throat hurting turned into strep throat and tonsilitis.
I think this was one of the hardest weeks to survive that I can remember in a LONG time. It's hard caring for a hurting child when your husband and yourself are exhausted and feeling miserable too. Although it was tough...we made it! 10 days of antibiotics for everyone and poof we were all better...
...NOT! After that round, Eli still wasn't himself. I know all mothers think their children are the best, but honestly Eli rarely cries. If he does, something is wrong. He is a happy child 99% of the time. So, with fevers and a grumpy child, we head to urgent care #1 we go because of course he got worse on a Friday night when nothing else was open...at 7:00 at night. After an hour or so we finally get home with round #2 of antibiotic(stronger this time) for our little man because his ear infections were still not cleared up and he had another virus...
...but wait, that's not it! On day 9 of the antibiotic, we notice Eli's cheeks were extremely red. He has eczema on them so occasionally it flares up so we put our usual cream on it and then waited. But soon the redness turned into bumps, and the bumps turned into welps, and the welps began to spread...oh boy...
...so it's Sunday (today) and here we go heading to Nite Lite Pediatrics Urgent care because it's the ONLY place open and by the time we could get there, Eli was covered from head to toe in crazy red bumps. I mean everywhere, even on the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. He was so pityful looking...but he was a trooper. The doctor had never seen a reaction that bad he said, SO it was determined that because Eli has been on antibiotics for such a long period of time, that his body could not handle the penicillin built up and was having a reaction. So after a steriod dose and instructs of benadryl, motrin and tylenol...yet again we head home. We drove away and as I looked at Kevin I thought, "Do we ever get a break?" "What are we doing wrong?" "I hate seeing our child hurting!"
Then I come home and I read a blog in which a couple I know is expecting their bundle of joy and only halfway through the pregnancy, they find out their child will have spinal bifida (Spelling?). Puts things into perspective REAL quick. I love my son as much as the next mommy and it physically makes me sick in my stomach when he is hurting. I wish it was me, I want to take away the pain and I want him to just smile again...but that makes colds and rashes easy to deal with. So in the grand scheme of things, I'm going to choose to be positive and say "Thank you GOD for only giving me this to deal with instead of so much more. I am truly blessed."
