Sometimes it's Four Calls to the Doctor

Starting a week ago Saturday Maddie began to have a cough... And by Sunday she sounded horrible. We took her to the pediatrician only to find out that it sounded a whole lot worse than it actually was but that it had a chance of developing into RSV, and that we should keep an eye out for fevers, shortness of breath, trouble breathing, rapid breathing, etc. Just what every mother wants to hear a week before the Christmas holidays...

Tuesday came around and by then Maddie and I were both sick. Coughing, congested, and miserable. She sounded much worse, and would get into coughing spells that ended with her throwing up. Yeah, back to the doctor we went. It was now considered bronchiolitis, and they tried to give her a breathing treatment but her body didn't respond to it. There was nothing else they could do, except sit in steam showers with her and try to give her a nasal saline spray.

Wednesday morning Tucker falls off of a stool at his grandparent's house and hits his head on their tile floor. Call me overly cautious but head injuries just don't sit well with me, so, you guessed it, back to the doctor we went! With no change in Maddie (for the worse or for the better), and with Tucker now being home but needing to be monitored for a 24 period to rule out concussion, etc., our little life was becoming a tad exhausting.

In the middle of the night, probably sometime around 3 in the morning on Thursday I got Maddie and put her in the steam shower again. She was having a vicious round of coughing and throwing up, and I was desperate to get her relief. The glass in the shower completely fogged over. The steam so thick it was hard to breath, and I watched Maddie anxiously wanting to see some sign that this made her feel better. Maddie sat laid down in her bathing seat, and I watched as her sides came in and she wheezed. She was having such a hard time breathing, but I watched as her face relaxed a bit and she closed her eyes. She seemed less panicky about taking breaths, and for the time being she had found some relief. I watched her with heavy eyes pleading silent prayers that we would all be well in the morning. My mind kept jumping to next year, when both kids will be sleeping through the night, when Tucker will (hopefully) be potty trained, when both kids will be walking, when both kids will be able to communicate, when I naively believe that life will be simpler, ha-ha...

But in the midst of that I reminded myself of something I know will be true. One day, I have no doubt, I would gladly relive sitting in the shower in the middle of the night with a sick baby. One day life will be much different, maybe one day when my children are grown and out of the house, I will long for the day I stayed up all night trying to nurse my daughter back to health. And I am sure I will have many more sick-capades before that time comes, but I know it will. The day will come when I would gladly relive this past week...

It's hard to be thankful and to feel blessed in the midst of hardship. It is one of the most difficult things for my heart to do. But I am blessed to have two adorable children, and that doesn't change when they and I are sick. I am blessed when my life is made more trying on account of them, and blessed when my life is made more complete because of them. I am blessed - even in the midst of sickness and exhaustion, in the midst of tears and tantrums, when my children are teething or smiling, when they are cooing or screaming - I remain blessed. Some moments are easier to see the blessings in than others.... Like a lot easier.

Tucker and Maddie at the Doctor's Office. 

(And, just in case you were wondering, we did go back to the doctor on Thursday to make sure Maddie's sides going in and under her ribs wasn't something to be concerned about.) She is still coughing but she is having a more normal diaper count and still has not run a temperature (praise!). Tucker did not have a concussion, but has begun to have a cough, so still praying he doesn't contract the virus Maddie and I have had.... I am doing MUCH better after finally receiving medicine (another praise!). And Nathan has remained untouched by sickness (huge praise!). So despite the fact that these last, eleven, days of Christmas have not been looked on with fondness from me, hopefully our little family is on the downhill side of sickness and will be able to enjoy the Christmas holiday together... Healthily.