Influenza A day 6

 This is a different experience for me.  She is way sicker than her last hospital stay.  I guess  benefits to the hospital are there are nurses keeping track of medicines and machines tracking vitals and oxygen.  Never thought I'd miss the monitors, but in these last several days, I do.  Nights continue to be very bad.  Breathing treatments, mucinex, and vest treatments being given every four hours and tylenol as often as needed, along with all her routine meds plus tamiflu.  I'm hoping her last night sweat out was her final break in fever, but time will tell. She can barely speak due to her throat pain and wretching. To add to her unpleasant days, she started her period.  She was due to have her shot today.  The office called yesterday to reschedule and it worked out that a church friend (a very knowledgeable retired nurse) came over and gave her the shot, which Lillian handled the best so far.   She is still fairly miserable, tearful, and mad at me A LOT.  I guess that might be considered an improvement.  She is also taking a few minutes in the bathroom to write on the mirrors as that is where I'm charting meds and treatments.   Keep us in your prayers.  We appreciate them all so much. 

So, in seeking to be positive, We have been SO very blessed by our church family. Matt made it to work safely.  Ezekiel is doing better today. Lillian is not any worse. (i think) the power is on and there is sufficient food in the house. We are warm and safe in refuge of His wings.  None of this is a surprise to Him.  He is faithful.

 Merry Christmas.  

Influenza Day 4

 Nights are rough, days are rough. Asthma is in full swing, which for her means coughing until she can't breathe. Fevers are still raging.  I  gagged and dry heaved this morning simply because her harsh gagging started me gagging, ;which led to other unpleasantness that I'll spare you the details of.   I am throwing EVERYTHING at her.  Oils, meds, more oils, more meds, prayer, prayer, more prayer, pleading prayers, crying prayers.   She's begged me to take her to the hospital.   Crushing.  Guess what, being home is just as exhausting as being in the hospital, my couch is just as hard in places as the pleather beds...HA! I am grateful to be home, though.  My shower is far overdue, but I can't leave her long enough to do so, because of all the constant snot and wretching. ( I sleep some when Matt gets home) I'm keeping notes of med times on the bathroom mirror because in my fatigue, I can no longer keep track of times.  Food in the house is sparse and I mean sparse because I haven't been to the grocery store.  We do have bread and milk and peanut butter and some very gracious church family are bringing us meals this week at supper time.  I've set an alarm on Alexa so I can give each of her meds spread out so that I can then give her her first feed. At least 3 friends called yesterday and prayed with me. 

 Thank you for your continued prayers and support.  There's my timer, time to medicate.

Influenza A

 In the early morning hours of Sunday, Lillian spiked a high fever. She woke me in the bathroom gagging.  Gagging and vomiting have always been a tell of a fever for her.  Sunday, she was miserable.  Unable to swallow, wretching, and nonstop fever. This has continued all through the day and night and into today.  After contact with our pediatrician, I got her in to see him this morning.  She tested positive for Influenza A , negative for Covid and possibly strep throat.  The rapid test for strep was negative, but her throat looked very bad.  She is in the window for tamiflu, so the race was on to find somewhere who had it.  I will save you the details of how long it took to get it and the difficulty it involved, but we remained in Columbus for some time before we got the meds.  After I initially dropped off the scripts, I ran to a drive thru to grab lunch as it was approaching 1pm.  I pulled over into a parking lot and tears overtook me.  Fatigue + my miserable girl  = crying in a parking lot.  I parked the car and praying a turned up the radio.  I had turned on KLOVE even thought I'd been listening to an all Christmas station since Thanksgiving.  The song on was Gratitude by Brandon Lake.  One of my favorites.  Next, Raise a Halleluiah...another great one...song after song seemingly curated for me by my creator at that very moment.   My family and friends are moving mountains in prayer and dinner is being provided today and tomorrow.  

I started to speak the blessings . He is near, He knows it all and He is Worthy of it all.  Our Christmas might look a little different this year.  That's ok.  We will praise Him in the storm and be grateful.

Ortho and Hematology update

 Lillian had a busy day in KY today with doctors.  First, we saw the ortho guy.  They x-rayed her finger, he came in and (I could already see with my lay eyes, or so I thought) said, it's healed.  No more brace. WHOOP WHOOP!!  Praise the Lord!!!He said that joint would be stiff but just encourage her to use it normally.   We sat and waited for a restaurant to open and had lunch then headed downtown KY to see her hematologist, which was going to be at least another hour wait.  But, praise the Lord, she got the message we were already there and she saw us right away!!!  The best news, her elevated PTT isn't an issue due to the fact that her Factor XII blood test is off.  Factor 12 is a a genetic issue often inherited by the parents and there is no treatment or any concern there any longer. Now, her platelet function aggregation studies need to be repeated because it is not normal.  She says 80% of patients who have an abnormal study and the test is repeated, it comes back normal.  It was a great day full of good news and I am so grateful.  

She is delighted to be freed from her splint and so am I.  We will have another round of blood tests in the near future and see the hematologist again in March.  Thank you for your continued prayers.