I Can Make It

:: A SMILE & A GREAT MAN ::


I am not writing this post so that you'll feel sorry for me, or be jealous of my patient and caring husband. I am mostly writing it for my own records. I've mentioned in the past few weeks that Piper has been SUPER cranky. Nothing would soothe her. I would feed her, then change her, then leave the house because she'd fall asleep in the car. It was getting old and Mike and I were waring down quickly. On Wednesday Piper's cry changed for the worst. At first I was so annoyed, but then I began getting concern. On Thursday I woke up with a horrible sore throat. At my 6-week postpartum visit I had my doctor do a strep test mostly because I was 100% sure it wasn't. Of all of the sore throats I've had in my 30 years, never has it been strep. I was correct. The test came back negative.

Later in the day I was really tired and starting to feel cruddy. Late that night, my temperature was over 104 degrees to I took myself to a walk-in. Again they conducted a strep test and it came back positive. Booooooooooooo! I had exposed myself to all sorts of folks that day and I felt really bad about it. When I got home Piper was screaming in agony (one point for Mike). It was horrible but I was so sick that I just took an Ibuprofen and headed for a nap. Finally Mike patiently got her to go to sleep and then put Cohen to bed (two points for Mike). Then he went to see Star Trek with his brothers. Not 10 minutes after he walked in the door (at 1:30 am) Piper started screaming again and my fever was back up. He paced the floor with her until 8:00 am until I was feeling better enough to get myself up (three points). He called in sick to work so he could stay home and take Cohen to his Kindergarten orientation (four and five points). Good man!

Piper screamed between 20 minute cat naps. I made an appointment for her to see her pediatrician at 2:10 pm. Mike took her (six points). He poked and prodded and tested and could tell something was definitely wrong, but he couldn't determine what. The doctor sent them to the hospital for blood work (7 points). While we waited for the results, Mike made dinner (8 points) and then took Cohen to the park (9 points), but not before calming Piper down and putting her to sleep (10 points). The doctor called and said the blood work came back fine but that if her temperature went over 100.4 degrees we needed to call him.

Friday night I was feeling a bit better so I let Mike sleep the first half of the night. At 3:00 am I had not been able to get much sleep and started getting a fever again, so Mike woke up (11 points) and stayed up with Piper until 7:00 am (12 points). He took her temperature and it was over the point so I called the doctor. He told us to take her to Primary Children's Hospital to get a spinal tap and some other respiratory tests to rule out meningitis and RSV. Sick kids go to PCH so I was a nervous wreck. Mike took her again (13 points) because I didn't know if I was contagious or what. He watched her get the same tests again (14 points) and waited patiently in the hospital room holding her and waited for the results. Luckily, she just has a bacterial infection was was treated with antibiotics and was then released. She has slept most of the afternoon, but woke up for about 2 hours and didn't cry once. She did have a fever so Mike went to the store to get some Ibuprofen (15 points) but she was smiley and happy.

While I enjoyed a happy Piper, Mike left again to get his mother's Mothers Day gift (16 points-he gets a point for this because I usually make/buy it instead) and stopped at Arby's to bring home dinner (17 points) on the way home. Now he is playing Zelda with Cohen (18 points) while I sit and type this (19 points) and talk to my sisters (20 points). I feel so lucky to have a happy baby and such a fantastic man. I feel like I need to change the celebration to Mike day tomorrow to make sure he knows how well appreciated he is.

For those of you that hung in there and read this entire post... you get points, too. Troopers!