Feb-March happenings, snow, and the Worst Week Ever

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you've probably already seen/heard about all this. But I've been wanting to get the details on the blog.

First, here's a bunch of my Instagram photos (low quality because my phone camera is junk)

 

 We had a family gathering at my parent's house in LaVerkin, and the kids got filthy playing on the trampoline. It's too bad you can't see how black Jack and Luke's feet were.

This is my sister Maria and my sis-in-law Monica, who are both preggers with baby girls, due this June and July!

Luke scarfing a giant cookie

The "Tooty Ta" dance

Tiger snuggles. Madelyn said to me: "Mom, I bet if we had all the fur from Tiger's nine years then we could make a set of pjs or something." Ok....ew.

 

When did they get so big?!

 The snows finally came. We had the driest, warmest winter in years, which I was quite alright with (68° in February? Hello!) But it was decided from church headquarters that the entire state needed to fast and pray for "moisture". So we got 28 inches of snow in a week and a half--no kidding. 

Those are my own tire tracks in front of my house, after I unsuccessfully tried to drive Madelyn to the bus stop. They don't cancel or delay school for snow here, but they should for days like this. Madelyn's bus got stuck on the hill and they were all an hour late. Mark had to drive down to Hurricane on the freeway for 40 miles and could only go 35 mph. I do not like the snow!!!

 

 

 On the morning of the biggest storm, there was about 13 inches of wet, heavy snow and I had to go out and shovel the whole driveway by myself because Mark was gone. I have taken it for granted that he has always shoveled for me. It sucked. It took me two hours. This is Mark shoveling, again, because it would NOT STOP SNOWING.

 We had quite the snow pyramid built up from shoveling the driveway, so Mark decided to stamp in some stairs and a big, slippery slide into it.

When Mark was home on a Saturday, he and the kids played outside in the front yard and then went sledding with my sister's family for a couple of hours.

Maria took these pics, that's Mark and Madelyn flying through the air, lol!

Luke was covered head to toe in protective snow gear, but he still came home soaking wet, especially in his boots. He and Madelyn had the sniffles, and I should have known better and kept them home, but they were so excited that I let them go.

 So of course, by the next morning, Luke's chill had set in and he had a pretty bad cold. This was nothing surprising--he has "delicate health" (as they always say in Jane Austen novels) and since he has reactive airway disease, it's almost a given that it will cause him breathing problems. We have drugs and a nebulizer on hand because he gets sick about every 3 weeks during the winter.

Madelyn was sick, too, but she never gets a very bad case. She bounces back after 2-3 days every time. Tiger just looks for a warm body to lie on, no matter what's going on.

I was fasting that day because of Mark's work situation. I hadn't fasted in years and it was really tough. I almost fainted and had to end a couple hours early to eat. It weakened me quite a bit, which did me no favors in the days to come.

 

That night (Sunday, March 1st) turned out to be very rough. Luke's symptoms turned more flu like and he was delirious with a fever, was sweating, shaking, coughing, wheezing and vomiting. He vomits a lot when he has a cough, so I was never sure if this was from that or if it was from the flu. He slept propped up on the couch and Mark got up with him in the middle of the night to do a nebulizer treatment. When I saw him in the morning, he had vomit dried on his neck and his jammies--I'm pretty sure he threw up in his sleep because I never heard him get up. I was freaked out because a friend of mine had a brother die from aspirating on his own vomit. Yikes.

Monday morning (March 2), I gave him a bath and he ate a little bit, and I thought the worst was over. I had a lot to do that day, and luckily Mark was home--too snowy to go to work in Hurricane. We were out of children's ibuprofen (Isabelle was teething and using quite a bit herself) and so while I was out going to parent teacher conference with Madelyn, going to the grocery store and getting stuff for the science fair and then getting Madelyn to gymnastics, Luke's fever got worse.

It was 103° by the time I got home and was able to give him the ibuprofen and he was really out of it. An hour went by and he wasn't improving--I took his temp again and it was 107.5°!!!! Mark said to check it again on the other side of his forehead (we have a forehead scanner thermometer) and I took two readings, and they were 105° and 106°. That is far too high, especially since he already had ibuprofen in his system. By this point I was TOTALLY FREAKING OUT, but I do have a resident pediatric specialist at home, so we just did whatever Mark said we needed to do. From then on, it was Tylenol and ibuprofen every three hours, alternating. I had to sleep with a timer under my pillow so I could get up and give him meds through the night. He received a priesthood blessing and seemed to be able to rest a little. Mark drove through the storm that would never stop storming and got him some antibiotics.

 Tuesday (March 3), he seemed to be doing a little better and I was so relieved.

 

 It kept snowing, and snowing.

But then Luke got another 103° fever, even with the Tylenol, ibuprofen and Azithromycin. And we were also giving him Singulair, Albuterol and Orapred for his breathing. We finally took him to the clinic as they were wrapping up their night clinic. Mark had heard some "gunk" in his lungs the day before, and Darlene was able to confirm that he had pneumonia in both lungs. GROAN. His oxygen levels were only 87%, which Mark told me later that he could have been admitted to the hospital with that low of a level. We decided to give him a shot of the heavy duty antibiotic Rocephin. It was painful and I was crying from worry, stress, and tiredness.

 

Wednesday, (March 4) Isabelle woke up with a fever. Noooooo

Luke spiked another 105° fever even with his constant meds that day. He was lethargic and weak and slept all the time. He hadn't eaten in a couple of days. I really should have taken him to the hospital for some IV fluids. But we don't have health insurance and Mark was in the middle of a two month long unemployment and we really couldn't afford to go. We were doing everything we possibly could and he was not responding to the antibiotics.

I came down with a cold at that point, too. I hadn't slept in about four days and was really worn down.

That night, Isabelle had a fever of 101° and tossed and turned and woke up every 15 minutes, crying.

 

 She had a runny nose that wouldn't quit, and she HATES getting her nose wiped, so it was not a happy time for anyone.

But Luke's fever finally broke early on Thursday (March 5) after five days! I gave him ibuprofen at 12:30 am and at 4:30 am he came to me in cold sweats with a temp of 97° and a random bloody nose. His fever did not come back. He still had a cough and a long way to go before his lungs were clear, but he ate a bowl of cereal--the first time he'd eaten in a couple of days.

Isabelle spent a second night waking up screaming every few minutes (how long had it been since I'd slept?!) and finally on Friday, (March 6) Mark looked in her ears and she had a double ear infection! Double pneumonia and double ear infections in one week!! MADNESS! She had a ton of congestion, but thankfully (?) it was just in her sinuses and not her lungs.

We got her on some Amoxicillin and prayed for everyone to get better. 

 

 Luke was finally improving but was still pretty wiped out. 

Then, because everyone else had had their turn, Mark got sick and spent the weekend trying to recover like the rest of us.

OY.

It was a horrible week. Add to that church calling drama, continued frustrations with Mark's unemployment, and about 20 loads of laundry...oh and Daylight saving time kicked in that Sunday, too! We did not even try to make it to 9:00 am church--we stayed home. But the whole rest of the next week was a big, tired blur trying to get caught up on sleep and cleaning and everything else.

We managed to struggle back to normal life, getting Madelyn's science fair project done (whew!).
If you're wondering, hummingbirds prefer red flowers because they are in competition with bees for nectar, and bees can't see the color red (hummingbirds can see in full color and UV). Bees leave red flowers alone and therefore those are more full of nectar, so the hummingbirds will choose them over other colors of flowers. They'll even choose red bird feeders over yellow, like our experiment showed.

 

 Luke went back to preschool after missing a week and got registered for kindergarten (finally!)

Tiger just did what he always does...

And the snow finally melted. 

Let's bring on the spring. Please.