From bad to worse

Last week was a challenge. I haven't had a cold this bad since the bronchitis/Key West incident of 2003. (That was actually much worse than this.) It has been over a week and my voice is still not 100%. It's a good thing I don't answer phones for a living because I spent most of last week whispering at work. I still have a bit of a sore throat and a cough as well.

I felt like absolute crud all last week but couldn't afford to use any more sick days so I dragged myself to work everyday. I really didn't think I was going to make it to the weekend. But I did. All I wanted to do (aside from finishing our tax returns, adjusting the girls' birthday skirts, preparing their birthday t-shirts, laundry and spending quality time with my loves) was rest.

On Thursday, Grammy informed us that Anna had experienced some GI issues. The big D. Okay, no need to panic. This happens sometimes with Anna. But then it happened on Friday with Emily. They were both acting perfectly normal when Rich and I arrived home from work Friday night. About an hour after we tucked the girls into bed, Em cried out in her sleep.

It was really sort of bizarre because she didn't wake up. She just kept whimpering and rolling around. I tried to wake her up thinking that she was just having a bad dream. She looked at me and then closed her eyes and continued with the whimpering and rolling around. She did stop a few times only to start up again five minutes later.

I finally really woke her up. "Em, what is it? Are you going to throw up? Does something hurt?" She was mad. "NO! Nothing's the matter. Nothing hurts." I shut down my Mac at 9:00 to join her in her bed. I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. Em fussed and rolled until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

And then it was 5:30. I suddenly woke up in a panic. How did I sleep uninterrupted for that long? Em was sleeping sideways in the bed with her head against the wall and her feet pressed against me, just like she did when she was a baby. I couldn't hear her breathing. I placed my hand on her chest and shook her. Her toe flicked against my side. I shook her again. I was about 3o seconds away from a full out panic attack. She rolled her head and started snoring.

I hate that I live like this. With fear.

The girls had a dentist appointment late Saturday morning. (I'll do a separate post about that later this week.) There was enough time for me to take a two and a half hour nap before their appointment. Em was acting fine that morning and at the appointment but then she suddenly lost her appetite. We brought the girls to Friendly's for lunch and she would only eat two bites of mac and cheese. And only two bites of her ice cream.

Poor baby insisted on changing into pajamas when we arrived home and spent the afternoon like this.

I was waiting for IT to happen. At that point, I was really just hoping that she was merely exhausted from not sleeping well. And then the big D hit her again.

Around 4:00, Em told us that she was going up to her room to take a nap. She has done this before with "naps" that last about two minutes. I went upstairs to check on her and found her asleep.

I checked on her ten minutes later. Still asleep.

I let her sleep for about 20 minutes and then woke her up for dinner. We were afraid that she wouldn't go to sleep at bedtime. But she did. I slept in my own bed until she woke up around 1:00 in the morning looking for me.

She started throwing up Sunday morning and couldn't keep anything down until Sunday night. She had a few bites of real food at dinner and started perking up a bit at bedtime. She was clearly exhausted even though she took decent naps in the morning and the afternoon. I slept with her again last night, which was a good thing because she puked around 5:30 this morning.

Thankfully, she seems to be doing much better. She was able to eat today and hasn't thrown up since 5:30 this morning. I hope this is it. I cannot believe how sick we have been this winter. Positive thinking, right? THIS IS IT!