Sick

I have been a mom for about 5 years and 4 months and in that time I have never once needed to take one of my children to the ER. Until this morning.

First let me give you a little wrap of the past 17 days.

Wednesday December 5 - I end up in the hospital with a bad kidney infection caused by a couple kidney stones. For the next four days my fevers range from 101-104 and I can hardly stand the pain. After a follow up with the urologist I learn that I will need surgery in January to remove a larger stone.

Saturday December 8 - Campbell wakes up around midnight and throws up until 2am.

Sunday December 9 - Peter starts complaining that he doesn't feel good.

Monday December 10 - Peter stays home from school with a fever. That evening he is diagnosed with Strep Throat. At 9pm he starts throwing up and continues to throw up and have diarrhea until Wednesday night. Around 10pm Brett starts throwing up, and I start an hour later.

Tuesday December 11 - Brett and I kept the kids alive. That was the only thing we can do other than throw up.

Wednesday December 12 - Aaron gets the fever/stomach virus, which we believe is Norovirus.

Friday December 14 - We finally think Peter is well enough to head back to school.

Saturday December 15 - Aaron starts coughing. Like the worst cough I've ever heard out of one of my kids.

Sunday December 16-Wednesday December 19 - Peter and Aaron produce enough boogers and coughing fits for a lifetime. Brett's and my immune systems work to ward off the cough/cold unsuccessfully.

Thursday December 20 - Campbell (who now also has the cough/cold) cries.... The. Entire. Day.

Friday December 21 (the end of the world is coming!) - Campbell keeps screaming and crying. Around 8pm Steven starts crying. Cries all night.

Saturday December 22 - around 5am we notice that Steven has a fever. Go directly to ER. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

So here we sit. Waiting. Watching two Qtips being shoved up my baby's nose. Watching my baby get an IV. Watching him get a catheter put in his penis to get a urine sample (really? Can't they just wait for him to pee? Babies pee every 5 minutes). Watching an X-ray tech put a tiny lead cover on him so they can take an X-ray of his tiny baby lungs.

The doc just came in. Steven's white blood cells were elevated. They would like to keep him over night. Over night? It is 8am. That means you want me to sit in this room watching him get poked and tested for another 24 hours? Awesome.

X-ray comes back clear. Thank God!

Nose culture does not. Little guy has RSV (I'll have to google that and read more but they say it is normal).

IV antibiotics are being started. And (yay) we get to go home with instruction to watch fever and follow up at pediatrician tomorrow.

I would give every gift under my tree just to have our health back. This has been a tough month. Not really the dose of "this is what having four kids is really like" that I was looking for in the first 7 weeks of my son's life; but that's the reality.