Several Days Crammed Into One

Yes.  That's how I feel today.  I fell like I lived more than one day crammed into one because my morning was so very different from my afternoon.  It's hard to fathom that they were parts of the same day.

PART 1

This morning Basia was sitting in a chair.  I walked up behind her to feel her forehead, and she screamed out in pain when I tried to move her head.  The back of her neck hurt BAD.  I remembered that the Urgent Care doctor and the helpline nurse had Basia and Poky Puppy touch their chin to their chest.  Basia could no longer do that, no matter how many times I asked at different times in the morning.  I googled what that could mean, and it was quite scary.  She also still had a temperature of 104.4, which is four full days of having temperatures between 104 and 105.  To top that off, she looked miserable.  She would lay down and be snoring loudly within a few seconds, and she was hard to rouse.

I called the doctor as soon as they opened to ask about the neck thing.  Meanwhile, she seemed sicker than I have ever seen one of my kids.  It was scary.  At one point I woke her up, and she could not remember the name of one of her brothers!  After hours of not hearing from the doctor, I called again, and they asked me to come back in with her this afternoon.  It was hard to get her awake and going, and she slept in the van and in the examining room.

Despite all that, the doctor felt that her overall clinical appearance had improved since yesterday.  Her blood work results were back and indicated a viral infection and the body struggling to fight it.  The doctor also suspects a deep seated sinus infection.  The stiff neck was not stiff enough to be a concern for meningitis, as I was fearing (whew!!!), but now I know exactly what to watch for.  We left with the instructions to call the doctor with an update on Saturday.  If Basia's temperature is not down, the doctor will admit her into the hospital.

PART 1 ALSO

So, while I am watching Basia show hardly any signs of life all morning long and waiting for the doctor to call me and tell me what to do, all I can think is "oh, my, gosh, we're headed to the hospital today!"  That was a scary thought.  My life is just recovering from our last stay, and I swear a certain little Edison still hates for me to leave him even for a minute.

I admit that my first thoughts were selfish.  I thought about what I better take with me this time that I forgot last time (my cell phone!!, a charger, socks, a sweatshirt, a book).  My second thoughts were scarier, "ahhhhh, my house is a mess!  I have tons of laundry to do!  I need groceries!  My kids need baths! Jon has 12 services to perform in the next 4 days, so he's not going to be around!"  I knew that things around here were in absolutely no state to be taken over by anyone else!  

I also thought that it would kill me to leave the kids again for days, and that I should forget all the "to do's" and just play with and hold my kids.  I spent my morning trying to pack it all in:  cleaning, making a grocery list, doing load after load of laundry, and hugging my kids.  I called my care providers for the day to come in early in case I was headed to the hospital.  I showed Brishen where the Easter egg supplies were located for a hunt if I were not home.  I set an alarm to remind whoever might be around that Poky Puppy needed a nebulizer treatment (in case I was not around).  

I'll also tell you that foster parents have a unique worry.  I have to know that a family emergency can very well lead to my kids being placed in other homes if we can't successfully pull off caring for one kid in the hospital and fulfilling our foster parenting obligations to the satisfaction of a large variety of people and institutions.  Can you imagine?  Basia is in the hospital.  Jon has to fulfill his responsibilities at work this very busy weekend.  My mom needs to care for my nephew while his family faces their own medical emergency.  My list of registered caregivers either can or cannot help out as much as we may need, meaning we could potentially have to place kids in respite, hoping they would return to us but not having any guarantees.  I certainly don't let myself dwell on these thoughts, but they are there, in the back of my brain, without a doubt adding to the overall stress.  Can everything be held together when I can't be around to do it?  Sure.  It's happened before.  Can it work when Jon also can't be around and my mom can't be around?  That's hard to know.  I know that my caregivers would do their very best, but it's still a worry.

This is on top of worrying like crazy about Basia: kissing her forehead often to get a feel for her temperature, waking her from time to time to make sure she was still waking up, asking her simple questions to make sure her brain was clear, checking my phone a bajillion times to make sure I hadn't missed a call from the doctor. Praying an ongoing prayer was a must.

On the stress-o-meter, this morning ranked pretty doggone high.

But then...

PART 2

The doctor's appointment was about as quick as they come.  I was home by the time the third caregiver arrived, so she wasn't really needed after all.  Since she came, and I didn't want to send her immediately away, she offered to fold laundry.  By that time I had tons of laundry to fold (oh, who am I kidding, I always have tons of laundry to fold!).  She sat in the living room, folding my laundry.  The other two caregivers took the other kids outside.  

Basia started showing signs of life, signs of Basia that were completely absent this morning.  At one point, she walked into my room and asked if she could check the mail.  That moment was completely shocking.  Basia loves to check the mail, but she had not been alive enough since Sunday to ever consider the mail, and this very morning I was wondering if she was even conscious.  I looked at her and mentioned that she sounded like Basia.  She was snotty and said, "what?!  I'm feeling better!"  Oh, how that snottiness was welcome at that moment!  She isn't ready to bike around the block or eat more than a few morsels or do any math (I'm guessing she'll milk that one for as long as possible), but she FINALLY seems to be on the mend. I even heard her be bossy to her siblings for the very first time this week!

 

The rest of my day was spent feeling like I had somehow narrowly missed something scary and difficult and full of unknowns:  a hospital stay with a very sick child of mine.  Every thing that happened for the rest of the day had a special glow about it.  Normal was more beautiful because I know that we narrowly held it in our grasp.  Oh, how I loved my naughty kids.  Oh, how sweet was the break when I sat in my room, feeding The Baby his bottle as he grasped my fingers.  I couldn't believe that I was getting to sit in a chair in a quiet room and just love my baby when I thought I was going to be in the hospital away from all my babies except one.  When Poky Puppy, feeling quite a bit better but not exactly great, sat on my lap, it was amazing to me.  It felt like such a gift to get to sooth him in that way when I could remember the days when I dreamed of him letting down his guard enough to let me touch him and hold him and love him.  Now he climbs right onto my lap when he feels miserable.  The little things meant so much more during the second part of my day because of the scare of the first part of the day, and I hope that feeling stays for a long time.

HOWEVER

My own peace and joy are not complete because, while we narrowly avoided the hospital today, my brother and his baby girl did not.  I got to tuck all my babies into their own beds tonight while Ken, Diana, and Kaia are in some sterile hospital room.  While I got to see signs of health return to my girl, their worries are so big and hard and present.  I ache for them and their own return to normal and especially for some answers.  

I sit here still trying to figure out how all these parts of my day were the very same day:  the one where I worried for the very life of my daughter and the sanity of my other kids and then the one where I held hands with my teeny, tiny son in complete awe for this life I lead.  

Some days are like that, I guess.