Goop and Grossness

This has been an interesting week, to say the least.  It has pretty much been one thing after another and we are just crawling out from under it.  One illness after another meant that I worked little this week.  I think it was Monday, half of Tuesday and a few hours on Friday.  Levi was having problems with his asthma and we stayed home Tuesday morning but I took him into work to do some things that afternoon.  I went to bed early and was feeling 'fuzzy' but it wasn't tiredness.  I woke early and pretty much kept half a glass of Sprite down between then and the next day.  It took a while to shake that off and I went to work Friday but didn't see kids because I felt it was too risky.  As I was driving home, my vision kept blurring, which was a bit odd but I figured that the contacts were getting old.

 

The next morning, I couldn't open my right eye at all, it was completely gummed shut.  The left eye was better but still pretty goopy.  So Saturday was a write off as well.  I could see again once I started to use the antibiotic eye treatment but I was still pretty light sensitive.  We had a bunch of things that we had to do that day though.

 

Levi had his soccer breakup and I would love to show the photos but in the last week, haven't had time to even to start to look at why Blogger is being such a butt about the photos.  I haven't had the strength or the eyesight!  Levi's breakup was really fun.  I stayed mostly in the shade chatting to one of the Dads.  They had a fun park, and Levi is now at an age and Samford is such a place that he could run off and play on the jumping castle and mini golf without my watching him.  They had a Laser Skirmish and lots of kids playing soccer all over the place.   Levi just found his friends, got $10 for a stamp on his arm to allow him access and then was gone until lunch time.

 

This morning I am finally on the computer, interspersed with Levi needing it for homework and all the things that I have had to do last week and for obvious reasons didn't.  I can only hope that next week we crawl out of this hole that we have inadvertently crawled into.  Because, you know what?  This isn't much fun!

Getting Better and Pirate Ship

Today was about slowly getting back to health.  Levi spent the day in his PJs and slowly seemed to creep upwards in his mood and cough.  It is an odd illness that now apparently has a name; H3N2 influenza.  It certainly knocked us both down but at least at a time that there is at least a even money bet that we will be better by our trip, now only three days away.  Levi was well enough at times, depending on the time and the amount of medication he had on board.  I am about 24 hours behind him and today was still in the feverish lethargy day, but even I am pulling out of that as well.  I never got the rash that so scared us all last Thursday, but the fever with this one has been impressively high!  So part of today was about barely lifting my head off the couch and the other part was about entertaining Levi who alternated between the couch and running around!  So we broke into some of the activities that we were going to take on the plane: we built a Pirate Ship!  This pirate ship was given to Levi by an auntie and was very complicated and required large amounts of space to complete and generated a large amount of garbage.  I'm glad that we decided to complete it here and not have to try to deal with all that on the plane!

Tonight the moon came up full and just beautiful!  There was a red tinge in the background as the sun itself had barely set itself.  The kookaburras were all laughing as the moon rose and it was a moment that you just wish lasted longer than it ever does. 

Then this happened!  Tonight there was a lunar eclipse!  It is so much fun to watch things like this happen in the skies.  It reminds me how small we all are in the workings of the world. 

Understatement

Well that last sentence last night was the understatement of the century!  It was definitely a long night!  It started with Levi falling asleep on the sofa last night (see last post) and I picked him up and put him to bed.  At about 7.30pm I went in to check on him and he was hot; really hot.  That cooking hot that is a bit scary.  I took his ear temperature and it was 104.8F (40.5C).  I woke him to give him Ibuprofen and he came out and joined me on the couch again but drifting in and out of sleep.  The drug didn't help a whole lot.  He dropped a degree or so but nothing earth shattering.  By about 8.30pm he started getting a rash. 

I took a photo (the one above) and sent it to my brother.  I know that high temperature and rapidly evolving rash is a bad sign.  Jim called back almost immediately and told me to take him to the Royal Children's Hospital as quick as I could.  I told him that Levi didn't have a stiff neck or photo phobia and that the rash blanched to pressure (all good non-meningitis signs) but he said they could all be later signs and to still get him in there fast.

So I bundled him up (in a tiger rug) and went to tell Jo we were going.  She volunteered to drive us so I didn't have to find parking which was fabulous.  Then about 20 minutes and a few ignored red lights later we were in the hospital.  Levi was feeling achy but the temperature was coming down and the rash as well.  The doctor hadn't seen a rash like that before but he said that it wasn't meningitis and so I went home again.  Jim was still a bit nervous and so he said to keep an eye on him for a while into the night.  I stayed awake reading beside him until about 1am but he stabilized.

It is certainly a hard thing to approach Emergency rooms again after such a long time away from them.  It is hard to trust doctors in them when I don't know them.  I am able to stay calm and chill Levi out while we are in there but when we are back at home and he is peacefully sleeping again, I struggle to go to sleep; even after 1am. 

Really Bad Timing

Well, it has hit the fan!  Levi is now super sick with very high fevers and a cough.  He continues to be febrile even after Motrin.  I am hoping that he gets better really quickly, because the last thing that I want is for him to be rugged up in a corner somewhere while the kids all have fun around him.  We have decided to just keep going assuming that it is still on, hoping it is a 24 hour thing.  I am crossing everything in hope that it is just that.  He fell asleep on the sofa this afternoon after I got him from school.  His day at school was 'great, really great' but it deteriorated from there and now a hot floppy thing is lying on the couch beside me panting with the fever.  It will be a long night I suspect.



I think tomorrow at school is definitely out but it won't hurt him to have a quiet one and that might speed up his healing

Wild Weather

It has been a wild few days.  It must be full moon or something like it.  Everyone seems to be a little off, Levi, Me, the kids at work.  It has been exaggerated by the fact that the weather has been crazy as well.  There hasn't been a day when there wasn't any rain at all.  Some days worse than others.

Levi has been a little ill.  It is getting worse but is still not bad enough to completely stop him.  Wednesday night, he played his double soccer.  As it was the last week for the Brisbane Roar coaching at school, they had an inflatable soccer field and a goody bag at the end.  Levi was stoked!  He concentrates really hard but was 'off his game'.  He cried a couple of times and when he tried to kick the ball it would go off track and he hates that!  I think that there were real injuries behind the tears at times but I also think that he likely would have had a higher tolerance than that!  So either he was getting sick or he was channeling an Italian soccer player.  Still he is getting there with soccer and really loves it, so that is a bonus for us both. 

This afternoon, the rain started to come down and there was a Severe Weather warning from the government, by radio and by text.  Our early warning system for flooding has improved significantly since the loss of life seen in the big floods last year!  You can now sign up for a text message alert and it has helped me out a lot.  I then got the next important warning.  My mother called to let me know that the causeway was at 0.35m and rising.  I called the school and had then get Levi out of class and meet me at the front of the school.  By the time that I had picked him up and driven home (about half an hour) the causeway was above that which I felt was completely safe.  We drove around the back and Levi and I went on a great 'adventure'.  We walked in.  Up and down a couple of hills and acres of mud.  Levi loved it!  It was pouring with rain.  Levi almost went over several times.  It was a wonderful fun activity for him and I loved that we had time holding hands and walking in the rain. 

However tonight his cough is worse and his asthma has kicked in further.  I am so happy that we came home and he is sleeping in his own bed tonight.  I can look after him better tomorrow, snuggled up on his own couch, in his own clothes (or more likely pyjamas).  I can not feel pressured to go to work because now I can't really do it on two levels.  I put him to bed early tonight and he went to sleep

Home Alone

I am starting to realise why I have been dragging the last few days. I am sick now, coughing and my body I think, has been fighting it for the last few days. I went to work this morning, not to see any kids (who don't have the immune system to cope) but to work on the computer and get some stuff done that way. When I got there the computer also failed. I think someone was trying to tell me something! Anyway I came home again, but at least Levi had gone to school already. Levi has this thought that is impossible to shift; he believes that if I am home, he should be allowed to be as well! Think I'd get a rest then? No, I didn't think so either!

The causeway is still flowing over. It isn't dangerous by any stretches of the imagination now and depending on how well I am feeling, I might take Levi down to play in it tomorrow. 

Yesterday I got my painting.  I chose this picture:

So this is the painting:

I really like the painting.  Ross is slightly off and I can't quite put my finger on it.  Other than that though, I really love it!  Actually the one they really caught was Evan I think!

Home Sick Again

Today was a fairly normal day for a while.  It is turning into summer here and the days just get progressively hotter.  The paths are carpeted with Jacaranda flowers and I am only just managing to keep up with cleaning the paths, with the new blower.  I am waging war against cane toads at the moment as well.  They are gross and I am hoping that in my small way I can protect the native Australian fauna.  That and they are gross.  Have I said that before?  All my friends in USA are afraid of the spiders and snakes here but what they don't realise is that it is the cane toad that does my head in.

Today was a normal day until about 1pm.  Then the school rang.  Levi had been complaining about stomach pains all morning and had been in the sick room for the last hour.  Could I please come and pick him up?  So I went to get him.  When I got there he was in the sick room with a sick bag but he was happy to see me and we went and got his stuff from the classroom.  By the time we got to the car he was all perky and happy.  He skipped to the car.  Now I am starting to get cranky.  I assume the he is just mucking not just with my head but also with the school.  In his defense, when we got home, he spent a significant time in the bathroom.  But then he was bouncy and happy all afternoon.  I got crankier.  In his defense, he did say he had a headache and I gave him Motrin.  But he was wanting to play all afternoon.  I made him lie down and be 'sick'.  He wanted to bounce around and interact.  I made him lie down and be 'sick'.

I have no idea if he is sick.  I have no idea what to do now.  Maybe there is something happening at school that I am missing.  I think I need to talk to his teacher.

And now he is wheezing steadily in bed.  Maybe I am just a really bad mother after all.  Oh I wish parenting was more cut and dried sometimes!

Sick? Probably Not!

Today was going to be really busy from the start, actually from well before the start.  The day had been scheduled that way and there was barely time inside that for any wriggle room. 

And then.

And then, Levi woke up and told me he was sick.  Now most of the time I can tell before he tells me, but this morning, it all seemed a little questionable.  Anyway, he said his tummy hurt.  He said he had diarrhoea.  I was not about to question him, but it was going to change everything.  I had to be at the Children's hospital at 11 to see a little boy from the Outback.  Queensland is a very large state.  It is twice the size of Texas.  It is a full quarter of the Australian land mass.  If Queensland was a country it would be the 25th largest in the world.  Now imagine that size.  Now if you put a pin on the bottom right hand corner, that would be Brisbane.  Now put a point as far away as you possibly can from that pin.  Now, that is where this boy was from.  He comes down once a year, to see the doctor, to get some tests and to see me.  So I had no ability to call in sick.

In fact there are not many worse days in a year that Levi could be sick.  Anyway I took him to work.  Our office manager and pretty much everyone else helped watch him, while I went to the hospital.  Levi loves my work and pretty much bounced off the walls.  I was cranky.  Not because he wanted a day off, but because he pretended to be sick. 

I had a dentist appointment at 1pm, to fix my back teeth.  I needed four fillings and one of them was really hard, because my tooth was splitting down the middle from the pressure of the grinding at night!  Man, I need to find a way of stopping that or decreasing the stress level.  Well, today didn't help!

Tonight when we were cuddled up as Levi was in bed, I told him I was disappointed in him.  I said that if he had just said that he wanted a day off, we could have discussed which day would be better and then I could take the day off with him.  I understand the need for time off, but I also don't want him to think he has to make something up to get it.  Levi had a little cry and then buried his face in the pillow for a while and then he gave me a hug and said he was sorry.

I think, had I challenged him this morning, I might have been more angry than I really was, just because of the logistical nightmare I could see coming.  Instead, I waited until I had cooled down, chatted on the Internet with a friend, changed my perspective and then talked to him.  I need to remember to do that more often!  

Now I think I am going to bed.  My jaw aches and my tongue is bleeding. 

Still Getting Sicker

The last few days have been horrible.  Levi wasn't better.  Perhaps we had a blip of improvement as the antibiotics killed their little part of it but then he screamed downhill again.  I had sent him to school Tuesday but was called before lunch because he was in the nurse's office.  He has had a horrible headache and has been so dizzy that he can't walk to the toilet without holding onto the walls or furniture.  He continues to cook at 103 - 105F dropping only a few degrees with Motrin.  This is what we did this morning:

He fell asleep about an hour after getting up and then roused briefly as I put him in the car to see the doctor.  One thing that was useful today was that taking a kid who is obviously that sick to the doctor meant that I got to wait in a room rather than trying to hold this sleeping six year old in my lap.  The nurse kept coming in and out of the room.  He really did look sick, of that there was no doubt.  He was febrile at the office and that was after he had been given meds.  

The doctor asked me if I had tested him for Meningitis and I said that I had, but I would prefer that he didn't let that stop him repeating them.  We all think that there is something big going on, but it may just be a big flu.  I hope that is what it is.  Pretty much we are going to wait it out a bit longer.  It has been 5 sick days now and by Friday will be a week.  At that stage, if he is not much better, I will take him for blood tests.  If he gets any worse, they said to bring him back or call an ambulance as likely if he was worse than today, they too would send him to hospital for the bigger tests and closer treatment.

This is what we did this afternoon:

 Yes, the position is the same and the posture is the same.  And, No he isn't any better yet.  He has not moved from the couch.  He doesn't cope if I am not touching him.  Finally tonight I put him to bed and he has stayed there without me touching him.  We watched TV.  We watched DVDs.  Tonight we read 'Deltora Quest' or more accurately, I read to him and he would only talk if I stopped to take a breath.  I will continue the story tomorrow.  Thank goodness, it is a big book. 

I called my boss this morning to just let her know that I would be off for at least this week.  Next week I am due to go to Townsville on Outreach.  I hope he is better by then.  More correctly, I hope he is better well before then, but changing Townsville would take an act of God and I think that God doesn't bother with menial details. 

Certainly Levi comes first and I love my job because there was never a question of that, my boss just said;

"They will just have to do without you if he is not better by then"

It is wonderful to work for an organization that understands the real priorities.  I hope that he wakes tomorrow a step better than the last few days though.  Pretty much he couldn't take much of a step the other direction without being a real worry at the moment.

I am going insane.  This pace is not a good one for me.  I am better when I can actually do something.  I have been on and off the computer as it's battery fails and I have been reading my own books but if I see another episode of Play School I think I am going to tear my own eyes out!  I am getting Cabin fever already and it has only been a couple of days.  I am so not used to this at the moment.  This is the 'well' child.  I hope he gets back to that in a hurry!

Well, I am going back to kiss that sweet fevered brow and snuggle up against that little hot water bottle and hope that it all just gets better in the morning.

In Sickness

Almost immediately after publishing the post last night, our lives took a dive for the worse.  I went in to get some sleep and Levi was restless and really hot.  I mean really hot.  Since then he has been somewhere between 101F and 105F depending on when his medication was given last.  His temperature has never been normal.  About a half an hour after that and before I really went to sleep, he started into delirium.  He was scared and angry and yelling out and never recognized that I was beside him.  He called out for me over and over.  It was heart wrenching.  It is hard to feel that he desperately needs you but that he can't recognise you.  Eventually I managed to wake him up completely and he snapped back to being him.  Now of course he was sick and hot but really wide awake.  We watched 'Ice Age' together at 1am in the morning.  He sweated through the night.  We both got very fragmented sleep.  Naturally we didn't make swimming.  In fact we won't make school/work tomorrow.  Pretty much, this is what we did today:

This was taken with my phone, so the image is pretty bad but this was it.  He either cooked while he slept on my lap or he cooked and watched TV.  I took him to the doctor this morning and he has started antibiotics, more as a precaution against secondary infection, than thinking this is really bacterial.  He went to bed hot, so I suspect that tonight may well be bad again.  I gave him a tepid shower tonight and tucked him in.  We shall see!!

Really not better

Yes, I think he really is as sick as he looks.  The Motrin will hold him together for a little while but not really very long.  We had brief glimpses of drug induced happiness, but most of the time we soldiered on.  Levi woke about 4 times last night mostly from fever and coughing.  Consequently he slept late.  Swimming was on the agenda but he slept through any chance of that.  While the Motrin is holding his fever down, he plays, albeit quieter than normally. 

I had to go grocery shopping or really we weren't going to eat this week.  I felt bad but frankly he was either going to be in this position on the couch, or in this position in the cart.  I snuggled him up and just went and did it.  I had him in a sweater and with mine around him, and he was still cold.  Sweet thing is now in bed with a hot water bottle, an electric throw and his robe on.  I am going to die of heat exhaustion in there but maybe he will be warm enough.

Tomorrow we have about a million boys between the ages of 4 and 6 coming over, so I hope he is a bit better.  Ty and Steffi are coming over and I am looking after them, in return for her looking after Levi last week.  Luke and Nate are coming over to play in the morning.  Then there are two boys coming over.  They are 5 year old twins, grandsons of a friend of Jo's.  OK, not a million, seven, but I think it will feel like a million, especially if Levi is still a bit sick. 

I am going to snuggle into bed beside the hot little mancub

Saturday

 Today we woke late, both of us.  Then we went to Pine Rivers Park.  It was a great day, for a while.  Levi and Zac and Alex all had a blast, playing on the big spider web and kicking a soccer ball on the grass.  It was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining and it was getting close to hot out.  Right about then, Levi asked for his jumper (sweater).

Now if you know anything about Levi and I, you know that neither of us was born with a thermostat that works.  It has to be freezing for either of us to even contemplate putting on an extra layer.  Well, freezing or sick!

By lunch time, he was slowing down and sat on my knee during lunch.  I was rethinking dropping him at a friend's house and took him home.  I gave him Motrin and about 15 minutes later there he was begging to go.  So I let him.  OK there was more to it than that, I told Cheryl and then I let him. 

Then I worked my tail off.  I have other kids I am looking after most of next week, so I knew that if I wanted to get stuff done around the yard I needed to do it this weekend.  So I mowed and weed whacked for 4 hours while Levi played at a friend's house.  Then as night fell, I went over and they fed us both.  Gotta love friend's like that!!

This face got more and more common during the day.  Poor little tacker.

Still Sick and Whiny!

The 'sick' has hit with a vengeance.  I took Wednesday off and went back to work today, but I was cranky and out of sorts.  Then tonight have a fever again.  I think I will just bag tomorrow as well and see if I can shake it off a bit better before trying that again.  I think that my work mates will be grateful if I could be a little less cranky and sick as well.  I am sorry my friends!  I promise I will be nicer.  Well until I am sick again!

Levi had his soccer training Wednesday night and he had fun running around.  I just lay on the blanket and waited.  Yes, I have been really fun the last few days.  I didn't even take any photos, but did on the weekend, so that what the photo is.  I have been a big baby.  Trust me!

Sick Day

This is what we did most of the day. Levi has had a high fever and a stomach bug. He has pretty much been in the same position all day, sometimes with his eyes open and sometimes they were shut. He has been better this afternoon and I am hoping he can go to school tomorrow, for the most selfish of reasons. I want a day to myself. I am hoping that he can but I am fine if he can't.

Today I think I won a vacuum cleaner. You know that I never believe it unless they place it in my hands, but I got an Email today. I never really believe things through the internet, but when I got the Email, I did at least remember that I had entered the competition in the past, so it may well be legitimate. It was through the Asthma foundation. I am not sure what the next step is but the Email said they would contact me. We shall see!

Nothing

Today we did absolutely nothing! We sat around, watched videos, played Legos, Playmobil and read books. Neither of us went further than about 30 feet from the couch. I drank lots of tea and coffee and Levi ate popcorn and fruit juice slushies. Basically we did nothing, but it was great. Levi is still sick and had an afternoon nap and went to bed at 7pm. I go to Cairns next week for Outreach so he will stay upstairs. I talked to Jo and she is just going to go and get him if he is too tired at school. I think it won't kill him or stunt his academic prowess in the future to lose a few hours in Prep.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for testing

Levi is still sick and I am still waiting around for the Australian Medical System. It seems really odd to me that we wait 2 - 3 working days for results in Australia that takes a couple of hours, tops, in USA. When I was in USA, I steadfastly defended the medical system in Australia. I assured people that I was sure that the care was the same. I was wrong. It all depends on how much money and insurance you have. The uninsured in USA are definitely worst off. Then there is the regular Australian and on top is the insured American. Over and over, I am now grateful that Frank was born and was sick and died in USA. I think that perhaps he would have been treated, and perhaps they would have made a diagnosis. I think that he would have perhaps lived as long, but I doubt it. He would perhaps have had the same amount of pain or the same number of bleeds. I would have chafed at a system that treats parents as extraneous extras. Frank would have had 5 other kids and their families in his room for every admission. The small amount of privacy that I had in Rogue Valley Medical Center would have been zero in the Royal Children's.

I don't think that Levi has anything scary. He is too tired and too white and too quiet, but he probably just has a virus. A long one (It has been about 2 and a half weeks). If I really look back at constant things like his swimming training, it has probably been as much as 4 weeks. Maybe he has Glandular Fever or some other long running but ultimately innocuous virus. I hope it is.

Perhaps Not ready for school

I had to go and get Levi from school this afternoon. He started to fade in the afternoon and his teacher called me about 15 minutes before the end of school. He has a fever again but it is low grade and I think it is still the tail end of this illness. I can still hear him coughing in the other room though so tomorrow might be a problem.

And Again

Yes life hasn't changed that much around here. The fever is gone but now his asthma has gone nuts. Mostly because the wind is crazy at the moment. There is a nasty westerly wind at the moment, strong enough to break off one of the Macadamia trees at the base. It has wreaked havoc with the little man's lungs. He is cough, cough, coughing but still he is on the getting better slope of this (I hope). Now he isn't really cuddly at all because he gets hyped up on the Ventolin, but at least if I keep an eye on him we stay in control.

He had the day off school again today. I did too, obviously. I didn't really think he was too sick for school but I didn't trust that they would keep a close enough eye on him, and we can get out of control quickly on days like this. The better news is that this winter was better than last winter, so I hope that it won't be a problem in a few years

In Sickness

Levi on the couch

This morning was a hot one. Oh the weather was horrible and cold and windy enough to blow away the car, but inside Levi was hot!. He woke with a fever of about 102 and after that it just climbed and he got floppy and snuggly the way that kids do when they feel bad. The first inkling that he was sick was first thing in the morning. He came out and I asked if he needed to go to the toilet and he gave me a surprised look, clapped a hand over his mouth and said;

"No, I think I'm going to hurl!"

Things went downhill from there. I called my work and his school and after school care all to cancel our days and then we just snuggled on the couch watching DVDs. Really we did get up once and go out to get Ruby's birthday present but that didn't go well. He wanted to go out, but I had to carry him all the time. He complained of being dizzy and not able to walk, but I think he just had the shivers. Maybe we managed to infect the whole of Brookside Shopping Centre, but who knows!

I don't really like fevers. I do OK with kids throwing up and I do OK with the other end as well. Fevers kind of freak me out. Coughing really freaks me out, but that is another problem. He was up to over 103 by this afternoon and is perhaps settling down a little now. It must be one of those 24 hour things that you get when you are little, that seem to never last less than a week when you get them as adults. He lay most of the day on my chest with his finger in my belly button. Yes he still needs the button when he is sick, or tired.

So tonight he is sleeping soundly and his fever is coming down (I think). I am hoping that tomorrow will be different, but perhaps not so much different, that I have to go to work. It is quite nice to spend a wild windy day, snuggled inside on the couch, knowing that you don't really have to go out if you don't want to. If only Levi didn't have to feel sick to make it a reality!

Being Parental

I had a very parental day. Not!! Levi is getting sicker, the snot is progressively more copious and progressively more colourful. So instead of snuggling him up in bed and getting chicken soup (which he wouldn't eat) I did the opposite. It was going to be one of those days at work; possible to get out of but not really. It was one of those days that it would be REALLY hard to get out of. So I gave him Ventolin, and I gave him Flexitide and I gave him Motrin and I dressed him warmly, blew his nose and sent him to school. Then I waited for the phone call. The question was not if they called but when they did and how much of clinic I could get done.

Actually they did call but it was After School Care. They reported that he had been quiet all day and that the teacher had handed him over saying she should have perhaps called me. Tomorrow I will do the really parental thing. I will dump work and take the Mancub to the doctor. Hopefully he will sleep in a little and we can have a quiet day watching movies and doing drawings and planning his birthday party. I have been pulling him together to get him through school days but it has been too many sick days and it is time for the sweet boy to have his Mum at home.