A Christmas (Illness) To Remember

I am a bit late with my Christmas post, but I have a good reason. Christmas came with a cheerful holiday spirit, way too many gifts, and a plague upon our house. Needless to say, it's been an eventful week or so in our house. First, SB woke me in the middle of the night a week ago with a sky high fever. She was whining, so I tried to feed her, still mostly asleep. That is our usual pattern. What came next was anything but usual, though. She refused to eat, which made me wake up fully, which made me realize that she was burning up. Her temp was 103-104.5, which freaked me out. She started shaking all over, and wouldn't open her eyes, and I was worried that it was a febrile seizure. We dosed her with Tylenol and gave her a cool bath (which made her scream), but I wanted to take her to the ER to have her checked out. She'd been fine when we went to bed, and the spiking fever and shaking had me worried. Of course, I had no idea where the nearest hospital was. I googled, and we went to the closest one, which I had heard of and knew to be a large teaching hospital. Unfortunately, what I did not know is that there is a pediatric specialty hospital nearby, which is where everyone takes their sick children. No one goes to the hospital that we went to. They were so, so kind to us, but it quickly became apparent that the young doctors had little experience with kids. They decided a urinary infection was most likely (and ultimately this was the problem), but couldn't get a sample. They tried cath-ing her three times, and then kept applying these bag things to try to catch the urine, to no avail (the bags they had were old and faulty, and kept falling off every time she peed). They finally released us to the pediatrician (after almost EIGHT hours in the ER). Within an hour, the pediatrician's office had collected the sample, because they were well-equipped and deal with kids all of the time. I felt horrible that we hadn't insisted on leaving the ER sooner, but they kept insisting that we stayed until they could get a sample, and well, lesson learned. Soooo, the next day SB started a course of augmentin. Within 24 hours of starting the medicine, SB's fever had come down and she appeared on the mend. Unfortunately, a nasty green diarrhea also accompanied it, but we dealt with it. If only it had ended there. Alas, Miss M must have brought a bug home from school with her on Friday, along with the cards and presents she'd made for us. On Sunday, she refused to eat and she had stinky, liquid diarrhea. Then, SB began vomiting in the middle of the night, which continued all day. I consulted the pediatrician's office, and they opined that it was a stomach bug, and advised us to give her pedialyte and keep up with her medication. Miss M was better on Monday. SB threw up for most of the day (is there anything worse than a vomiting infant?), but by Christmas Eve, they were both on the mend. But then T got sick, and then me. Argh. Still, we both felt better yesterday, and the girls were great. Christmas itself was a magical, happy, way-too-many presents kind of day. Miss M was speechless at her dollhouse. She had eyes for nothing else once she saw it, and we had to tear her away to get her to open other presents. It was just how Christmas should be. We had a blast. Our mothers both visited for Christmas, which was really nice. Sadly, my MIL's husband woke up sick this morning, and T and I were both worse again this morning. I stayed home from work. My MIL and FIL couldn't leave to head home, because he was too sick to drive.

Unease

I've been rattling around this space lately, anxious to post, but ripped in a million other directions every time I sit down to write.  I stop by, I click through to read a blog or two and maybe even comment on what I've read, but then I get distracted by other things before I can sit and write (case in point, I am in the middle of studying, and taking a break, and as I type this, the baby has awoken and is wailing, and thus far T. is doing a mediocre job of calming her down).  Really, current wailing aside, things are great--the kids, T, learning Spanish, my job.  Truly, life has been lovely.  And yet. . .

Something is gnawing at me, and I don't know what it is.  I feel unquiet, on edge and afraid of something that is just off my periphery and which I cannot see.  I am constantly worried, before breakfast thinking a half dozen worst-case scenarios of all different stripes.  I am slowly driving myself mad.

I think perhaps the problem is that I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, because things are indeed so good.  I know what it means to struggle, to work hard, to try to overcome.  I don't know how to exist in space where there is room to breathe, to live.  It's making me antsy.

Okay, I really can't listen to that poor baby any longer.  Daddy is lovely, but he's no mommy.