Grateful

One or another of us has been sick since Christmas.  Ry and I were both laid low with a stomach bug during one of our earlier snowmageddons, T has had a runny nose for most of the month, and F had an ear infection.  Thankfully, I was off most of the month and Ry took some vacation while my mom was here.

Monday, I felt off all day.  I tried to shrug it off, since it was our 7th anniversary and we actually had a sitter (!) for once.  By the end of the day though, I transitioned from off to downright bad.  My wonderful husband ordered food from the restaurant where we had reservations, picked it up, brought it home, set the table with candles and we had an anniversary dinner.  I didn't eat much, but it was still nice to spend an hour talking to my hubby without crying or random noise.

At 2 am Tuesday morning, I went from bad to ugly.  Let's just say I was up evacuating for several hours and finally fell back into a fitful sleep around 5 am.  Ry stayed home in the morning long enough to get the boys up and to the daycare so I could concentrate on actually dragging myself to class.  Since our class days are 6 hours of lecture and we had our orientation for clinicals starting today, I really couldn't miss yesterday.

As soon as I stepped foot in the parking lot, I received a phone call from the daycare, telling me that F had spiked a 102 temperature and was coughing a lot.  How did they know he was really sick? He wouldn't eat any lunch.  I went straight to get him and from there straight to the pediatrician.  He had a little cough when he went in Tuesday morning, but I was pretty shocked by how bad he sounded when I got him.  So shocked, in fact, that I almost drove him to the ER instead of the pediatrician. I finally decided that he would probably be seen quicker at the doctor's office.

The doctor stepped inside the room and said something to the effect that she didn't need her stethoscope to hear F's wheezing.  She diagnosed him with an ear infection and respiratory infection.  She also gave him a nebulizer treatment in the office, prescribed an antibiotic and told me that he should probably stay on a once-a-day treatment for the rest of the winter (once he got over this bout of course). This is the 3rd time we've been to the docs for wheezing in the past 2 months.  I'm afraid my baby boy may have inherited his dad's tendency to asthma.

The tylenol last night wasn't really doing much for his fever, so I put him in a tepid bath before bed (did the trick!).  Ry offered to stay home with him today so I could go to my clinical.  It was actually a really interesting day in Interventional Radiology, but that's another story for another day). When I got home this afternoon, he was still running a fairly high temperature. He'll not be able to go back to daycare tomorrow either, even if he's feeling better in the morning.

And here's where I'm really grateful: Ry is staying home with him again, tomorrow, so I can go to clinical.  He has about a bazillion sick hours stored up, but still. I'm grateful that he's willing to put his job on hold so I don't have to make up clinical days at the end of the semester (and pay $75 per day). I'm grateful that he does it with such a willing and kind spirit.  I'm grateful that his boss is the kind of guy who also takes sick leave for his kids' illnesses. I'm grateful to Ry for blowing up the air mattress in F's room so I could sleep in there last night (you know, in case I got too worried). And I'm grateful for doctors and medication and cell phones and big brothers who cheerfully play video games because his parents are preoccupied with his little brother. Yikes, that was a really long way of getting to the point of this story:

Tonight, I'm just feeling grateful.