One wild Month (and a half)

It's December, and this is usually one of the craziest month's of the year for most people.  And it has definitely been a wild one for us, but for different reasons.  I wish I could say we have been busy with holiday decorating and shopping and planning fun holiday events.  But that has just been the least of our concerns this year.

It all started at the very end of October.  I had surgery to replace my pacemaker with a pacemaker/defibrilator.  And while that sounds like a big deal, the recovery wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.  The worse part was that I couldn't drive or pick up my child for 6 weeks afterward.  And that presented a problem for us.  So we enlisted the help of my mother and Tommy's dad to come and help out with JT during that time.  I never would have made it without them.

One week after my surgery, Tommy left to go on a 12 day work trip to Asia.  The timing wasn't great, but he didn't have much say in the matter.  And I felt like things would be fine considering I had plenty of help here.  But 3 days after he left, JT started to get sick.  I had gone to the Medical Center that morning for a 10 day follow up after my surgery.  When I got home, the Doctor's office called and scheduled an appointment to see JT.  So we loaded back up in the car (remember I couldn't drive so we had my FIL driving and my mother there to help with JT) and head back down to the medical center.  After seeing the doctor and doing a rapid strep test, we found out it was positive and JT indeed had strep throat.  We opted for him to have a shot since they work much faster than the oral.

He missed school Monday and Tuesday that week, and then went back Wednesday.  But as we were getting him ready for school Thursday morning, he got sick again.  He ended up missing school Thursday and Friday with a stomach bug, and then one more day on Monday just to recover.  We were so happy to finally get him back in school on Tuesday.

Tommy got home from his trip on Wednesday and I was so thankful to have him home.  We made it through the weekend and into the next week.  We went to Kinder on Thursday for Thanksgiving where John started having a lot of congestion and stomach problems.  So we came home Friday hoping to get everyone well.  But then that weekend, I started to get sick.  I finally went to the doctor on Tuesday and got some antibiotics for what I think must have been a sinus infection.  Later that day, Tommy started feeling bad too.  So I was in the bed for about 3 days and he missed two days of work.  In the meantime, Tommy's dad was feeling pretty rotten himself.  So we finally sent him home so he could see his doctor.  He ended up having pneumonia.  My mother went home over the weekend, and she was beginning to get sick when she left.  By the time Monday came around, she had gone to the doctor and found out she too had a sinus infection.  So instead of coming back to help for one more week, we just told her to stay home and get well. 

So now I have one more week of recovery and all of our help is home sick.  With the help of a couple of my neighbors, I was able to get through the week, taking John to two doctor appointments.  Finally Friday came and I was able to start lifting him.  Just in time too, because on Saturday, Tommy left for a 6 day work trip to Europe.

Saturday and Sunday night, our night nurse called in sick, so I had to take the night shift both nights taking care of JT.  It made for two very long days on Sunday and Monday. 

All was well until 4am Thursday morning, when our night nurse called me to tell me that JT was running a temp.  So he stayed home from school Thursday and then again Friday, missing his last two days before the break.  The fever got higher early Friday morning and hung around.  He was miserable.  So I got in to see the doctor today, and found out that he once again has strep throat.

Thank goodness that Tommy got home today.  He was a big help once we got home from the doctor because JT just didn't want to do anything but be held.  Tommy went to the pharmacy to get his antibiotic and then we gave JT a good bath and fed him dinner and now he's been in bed since before 7:30.  I am hoping he gets better sleep tonight that he's had the last two nights.

So my hope that we would finally make it to church on Sunday has been greatly dimmed.  Maybe one of us will make it, but it's doubtful all of us will.

So now we are hoping that JT will be better by next Saturday when we leave for our trip to Colorado for Christmas.  We are planning on doing some skiing and enjoying time with family.  We have been planning and looking forward to this trip for months.  I just hope everyone is well so that we can enjoy ourselves.  I sure will be glad when January gets here.  It's gotta be better than the last month and a half.