Friday morning, I woke up feeling a little more human. There were piles of vomit covered and poop covered blankets and towels from the morning before that needed washed. I had already tried washing what I could Thursday. My house was a mess. Sweet Pea was really hurting. I called her doctor and told them I wanted seen again, right away and I wanted them to actually try and do something. They told me to go to their walk in care office. I called my mom, again begrudgingly, and she came in to help with the boys.
The doctor that saw Sweet Pea took one look and asked why they didn’t refer to her to the hospital on Monday when we were in. I told her that they didn’t think it was a big deal. She was NOT happy. She was a new Pediatrician who I have never met but had just moved to the office from another local office because she wasn’t pleased with how they took care of their patients. Surprise to her that our office is the same…ha. The boys were getting out of hand and my mom decided to take them out to the waiting room.
My eldest runs from us and plays my mom. My mom will not try to catch him…she’s almost let him get hit by a car before. Mom took him out. I was so scared she’d lose him. As soon as mom walked out the new doctor looked at me and told me to take her straight to the ER at the best hospital around, which is an hour and a half drive away. She told me that the pediatricians and hospitals closest to us would not know how to handle it, being Sweet Pea was not quite 2 years old but that it NEEDED treatment and needed to be drained. Sweet Pea’s entire butt cheek and the top part of her leg were hard as a rock again. She apologized to me and couldn’t believe the other doctor had told me to keep draining it myself. I told her that I didn’t care much for that either. She was extremely helpful. She told me to expect the big town hospital to keep her overnight and do surgery on it to remove the pus and put in a drain.
I had nothing with me for more than a 3 hour trip out of the house so we ran to Target and called my dad to come get the boys or ride with us. I grabbed what I needed for the boys…diapers and formula for Butter Bean and activity items for String Bean.
When my dad got to Target to meet us, he offered to just take the boys home with him and mom overnight. I agreed since the boys are hard to manage especially in a hospital. My mom sat and threw a tantrum, begging me to let her go along to the hospital to be my “support person” while dad was left to wrangle two ornery boys by himself all night. Not in the mood to fight with her, I just left her come. I didn’t care if she came as long as Sweet Pea got fixed up asap. I’ve said it before but everything can be going smooth as butter and as soon as mom shows up, so does the chaos. She wasn’t too bad at the ER.
The pediatricians, surgeons and nurses kept coming in and giving me info, having me sign papers, admitting us and making plans to do surgery in the morning. The last thing on my mind was food. My mom kept telling me I had to eat. She wanted to go get me food. I told her I was fine, that I wasn’t hungry. They said they were getting ready to come in and put an I.V. in Sweet Peas arm. I was playing a game with her where she’d stand in the corner of the room and act like she was going to run toward me so I’d run toward her and growl. She’d squeal with delight and run at me. When she reached me, I’d grab her and toss her in the air, catch her and set her down then run the other way. She loved it. It was keeping her busy.
The doctor came in and mom told them that my sugar dropped a lot and I had to eat or I might faint. This is totally not true. I do not have any sort of problem. When I was a teenager, my blood pressure would drop. It’s always been lower than normal. I’ve never had any problem with sugar outside of it dropping during pregnancy. I just stared at my mom and I said, “I do not have sugar problems. What the heck?” The doctor just looked back and forth and walked out. This is the awkwardness I’m talking about. She loves and craves drama…and sometimes tries to stir it up for fun. Mom took a walk to go get food, even though I told her I was fine. And honestly, I was still getting over my virus and had no appetite. She brought me back mashed potatoes and gravy and a horrible tasting coffee. I told her I really wasn’t hungry. She told me I better eat because she spent money on that stuff and as much as it cost I better eat it. Ugh.
I walked out in the hall to call Hubbs to let him know they were getting ready to put in an IV and were keeping her overnight. He was working. It’s difficult for him to leave his job if I can handle something on my own. I told him surgery was in the morning. While I was on the phone with him, the doctor went in our room so I told Hubbs I had to go. I ran in the room as the doctor was walking out. He told me they were going to be in shortly with the I.V. I thanked him. Mom told me they were pretty sure my hubby probably has MRSA virus in his body and Sweet Pea probably got this from him since he gets abscesses all of the time. In the 5 years we’ve been married, he’s had 4. I take everything she says with a grain of salt so I figured if they were going to test for it, they’d tell me or ask me about my hubby. Heaven only knows what she told the doctor.
They got the IV in and by this time it was 7:30pm and past bedtime. Sweet Pea laid on my lap and watched T.V. She was attached to the I.V. post as they were pumping her full of an antibiotic then fluid. They were giving her two rounds of an antibiotic throughout the night. She started to get restless. My sister came in around 8:30 with a birthday present for her. It was a wand that repeatedly sang just one line of “Let it Go.” It kept her busy at least. My sister and my mom are 2 in 1 the same person, I swear. She came up to get my mom for me. Our family has a weird dynamic.
Hubbs finally got there around 9 or so. I was so happy to see him, I started to tear up. Mom and Sis left. Dad assured me the boys were fine and sleeping soundly via text. I snuggled down with Sweet Pea and tried to soothe her to sleep. Finally at 11 she dosed off. I laid there and couldn’t sleep. I was worried about her getting anesthesia for the first time. I was worried she was scared and would be terrified before and after surgery.
I finally dozed off around 1:30 a.m., laying in the tiny bed with her in between my legs, sprawled out while I was in a half sitting position…my already sore neck was cricked to the side…
At 2 a.m. the nurse knocked on the door and woke us up to tell us we were being moved to a room on the pediatric floor. They took us up to the room and of course Sweet Pea woke up. She was NOT happy to still be hooked up to the IV and not able to really go anywhere. The got us a children’s sized bed and took the crib out so I could sleep with her. She wasn’t allowed to eat or drink after midnight and of course she wanted some milk. The anesthesiologist had told me earlier that if she absolutely had to have milk to let her have a little. After having her upset and fussing and crying for an hour, I finally gave in and left her have some milk. She fell right to sleep. At 4 the nurse came in and tried to ream me out for letting her have milk. I told her what the anesthesiologist had told me and that he’d told me if I had any trouble with the nurses to have them contact him. She got upset and walked out.
They came in at 6 to check her vitals and start the second round of antibiotics. Of course that woke her up and she was so upset that she couldn’t have milk or eat. Her surgery was scheduled for 8. They never took her back until 9:30. They took her back crying and screaming for me. I cried. Finally, they called us at 11:30 to come back with her.
She was still asleep. When she woke up, she was thrashing around, screaming and crying and trying to get the I.V. and bandages off. It took her an hour to calm down. As soon as we got her back to the room, we snuggled and watched Frozen and Aladdin while she got to eat pizza, french fries, carrots, and fruit. She was so happy to be eating.
Around 3:30pm they told us we could go home soon. They took out her IV, we got packed up and signed the papers. We were out of there by 4:15pm. We made it home around 6pm. My parents brought the boys home. My hubby ran to town and got us food after we got home. I cleaned up the towels and blankets and tossed them all in separated piles to be washed. I vacuumed and washed the floors then sprayed lysol on every door knob and light switch to kill off germs from the virus we had.
Hubbs came back from town and told me his grandparents were taking over Thanksgiving since I was supposed to host it the next day but had to cancel. He told me we were going to their house 45 minutes away all day. I told him he was crazy. After the week we had, then the hospital stay and next to no sleep all week, he still wanted to go visit family? Especially the first time we were all getting together in 2 years, with all of that tension? I was upset with him. I just wanted to stay home, be with my little family and catch up a little bit. I was overly stimulated from the week and my inner introvert self was done with all of it. I prefer to be alone in general so naturally I had had too much interaction with people all week and needed a break. He told me it would probably do the kids and I all good to go have someone else take care of us (grandparents and parents) for the day.
Sunday morning was stressful. I had slept on Sweet Pea’s floor with her in her crib Saturday night to make sure she didn’t hurt herself or accidentally pull the drain. She had a habit of taking off her diaper first thing each morning and jumping up and down in her bed and she sleeps with around 20 stuffed animals. Around 1 a.m. I heard a heaving sound and jumped awake to her throwing up. I grabbed her and ran for the bathroom. She had already thrown up all through her bed. I cleaned her up and changed her clothes. I took her over to our room and handed her to my husband while I cleaned up her bed and tossed all of her blankets and sheets on a pile and her stuffed animals in the washer. I grabbed a big metal bowl and took her back other room. I laid her beside me on the floor and cuddled her. When she had to throw up, we grabbed the big metal bowl. I ended up being up with her most of that night too. The next morning, in no way did I want to go visit my in laws for the dinner *I* was supposed to be preparing that day and dealing with a potentially extremely stressful day.
Sweet Pea finally started feeling better around 10 or so that morning. I got everyone bathed and cleaned up, packed diaper bags, got myself ready and all of that jazz. About halfway through getting myself ready, my hubby started carrying on with me. He was trying to be funny and make me feel better but in my world it was incredibly insensitive. I was completely sleep deprived, still partially had a virus myself, and my neck was STILL killing me. I was worried sick about my kids…One had been throwing up and had a drain in her bottom. One had the tail end of the virus still. I was still worked up from my oldest almost drowning in his sleep one night and was terrified one of them would actually do that. My youngest had yet to catch anything so I was terrified he would do what my oldest did and almost drown on his puke in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t know. Well after Hubbs said something (I don’t even remember what it was now but it just happened to be the last straw), I just started to cry. He told me to “get a hold of yourself…you’re a grown woman, act like it.” I don’t think he realized how upset I really was so I started really crying and slammed the bathroom door. I sat in there and cried my eyes out (right after I had just got done doing my makeup…stupidly). I had an anxiety attack.
Once all was said and done, I stood up, fixed my clothes, reapplied my makeup and went about my day. Hubbs apologized when I came out and told me he was just playing with me and didn’t mean to upset me. When he’s upset or stressed he gets super sarcastic and tries to screw with me for fun…I’m ok with that and usually play along but this particular week, I was stressed and overwhelmed too so I lost it momentarily.
We got the kids around and out the door by 12. It was also Sweet Pea’s second birthday so we gave her her gifts before we left. When we got to Gramma and Pappy’s, everyone was cheerful and happy. The mood was light. The boys played (Our oldest and their oldest). The girls (our second and their second/last) were both still not up to par. Their little girl had been sick that week and Sweet Pea of course was in pain. We all chatted and visited in a friendly manner. The visit was pleasant and went very well. We came home and went straight to bed.
Stay tuned for the last part…the second week from hell.
The Wandering Farmer's Wife 