when it rains, it pours

and no, I'm not talking about Morton Salt.

Right off I want to say that my intention in posting the following is to somehow glorify God, not to have a "poor me" thing going on. I don't believe that God causes everything that happens to happen; I do think that as a Christian, my life is in his hands and things are allowed to happen, and he may or may not choose to intervene. What amazes me though is that when things DO happen, when we give them to the Lord, he can redeem things and make all things work together for our good. Not what we may think is good, not our preferences, but what is truly good FOR us. At times... it may be like medicine.

I mentioned several posts ago that Jeff had to go back in for outpatient surgery. Thanks to wonderful friends, I had no shortage of people to watch the kids for me. One little thing that was "neat" (hats off to Mrs. B) was that the one friend who I wanted to watch the kids due to her proximity to the hospital didn't return my phone call in time, so I made arrangements with another friend who lives across town. After the arrangements were made, I found out that the procedure was NOT in the hospital I thought it was... it was in fact, in a location closer to our house and to the home of the friend who had agreed to watch the kids. My plan didn't work... but God knew and the plans that ended up happening were far better.

The procedure went well in the sense that there ended up being nothing wrong, but the downside is that it is taking longer than we expected to heal (perhaps from having two incisions in the same spot within 8 weeks??) so he has spent another week doing part time days at work and is quite sore.

This week was Jeff's actual follow up with the GI for his pathology report (we had previously gotten initial reports by phone from the nurse). I really wanted to go with Jeff so we could talk to the Doctor together. I knew the date was July 2 and had actually mentioned it to a few friends about a week and a half ago (when I was arranging for care for the outpatient procedure) that I would need help again on this date. Well, living in my own little world as I do, I was unaware that July 2 was this soon. I honestly thought I had another week... On Monday, not one, but TWO friends called to make sure that I had someone to watch the kids on Wednesday. I was a little confused, why did I need a sitter on Wednesday? For Jeff's appointment. Oh, is that THIS week? Duh. But seriously, how cool is that? How BLESSED am I that I not only have friends willing to practically raise my kids through all this physical stuff we've been dealing with, but they remember my appointments better than I do and call to make sure someone is watching the kids? Is God good or what?

Wednesday morning Jessi woke up with her left eye swollen shut. I assumed it was allergies or something like that and gave her benedryl. It went down some but did not respond like I would have liked, however, we went to the GI anyway and left the kids with my friends, went on to church that night. I knew it wasn't pinkeye as her eye itself looked fine, it was just the lid and all around it.

The report from the GI doctor was pretty much as expected,but he worded it a little stronger than the nurse had... "you should be thanking whoever it is that you thank that you were sick enough to be sent in and all the pieces came together to make me do the colonoscopy. Your cells were precancerous and you would not have made it to age 50 to begin check-ups" Again, we are struck with the fact that nothing about all the sickness that Jeff went through was good, but GOD has worked it all together for our good. Jeff being so severely ill and in the hospital and having the surgery literally has saved his life. Every so often it hits me, and I get chills. Praise God!

Thursday morning Jessi woke up with the eye still pretty bad, and an addition of having a pretty good fever. Now you must understand that I do not normally run the kids to the doctor (see previous post about procrastinating for MONTHS to transfer to a new pediatrician), however, none of this added up and I felt very strongly, almost compelled, to call and get an appointment. I figured if the new ped wouldn't take us (I hadn't even had the records transferred yet) that I would call the old ped and just drive all the way there. The new Ped did take us "can you be here in 35 minutes?" Uh... gulp. all three kids in PJs still and driving there through morning traffic. SURE we can be there... by the way, where is the office exactly!?!?

We made it, I filled out much paperwork, called the old ped and had them fax over just the shot records, and they took her back. Our appointment was with the NP (nurse practitioner) who was quite shocked at her eye. She did a very complete exam and history then left to go get the Doctor. Hmmm. Interesting. The doctor came in and was shocked at the eye, confirmed that it was cellulitis, and told the NP to proceed as she had planned, and warned us that if it got worse, to go straight to the hospital. The NP told me that they would give her oral and eye drop antibiotics, and to use warm compresses on the eye. She showed me a small slit inside the eyelid where they assume Jessi was developing a sty but instead of forming a head, it "went internal." She also told me that I was going to have to come back on Monday to check her, but in the meantime if anything happened over the long weekend to go straight to the hospital. She walked us up to the checkout desk and AGAIN told me to keep an eye on it, if it got any worse or looked bigger, go straight to the ER. Yikes. I get the message!

Not being familiar with cellulitis, I came home and looked it up online. Note to self: don't DO that! Apparently cellulitis can be treated with antibiotics, but can go bad very quickly if not treated appropriately. Scary stuff.

We dropped the prescriptions off and went home for a little while before it was time to pick up Jeff. Jessi's fever was now up to 102.5 so I gave her tylenol, an hour later it was still there so I gave her motrin as well and started wondering about this whole cellulitis thing...

I was supposed to have gone in to the Chiropractor Thursday morning but due to Jessi, didn't go in. I called and she said that she got off at noon but she would meet me back there in the afternoon. This actually worked out GREAT because she wanted to show Jeff some moves to do to me to keep me functioning in between visits to her. Between me not making it in the morning and needing to go pick up Jeff early from work in the afternoon, it was perfect timing, she wanted to meet me right at the time that I had to go get Jeff anyway.

We went and got Jeff, picked up Jessi's prescriptions (her fever was down now) and went to the Chiro. They are a husband and wife team and our kids LOVE their kids. Since she was officially off duty, she had the girls with her so all our kids played together. It looked like a daycare and not a doctor's office, LOL. Dr. Kelly showed Jeff some things he could do to help my hip and pelvis issues and also had Dr. Kevin come in and strong arm me some too. By the way, how AWESOME is it to have a Dr. who instead of telling me that I have to come see her every day to stay well, comes in after hours to teach my husband how to help me at home? Is God good? Oh yes!

After a long day we went home and toward evening Jessi was really feeling punky. She had napped a few times through the day but now the fever started climbing and she urped a few times. I gave her tylenol with her temp at 103, an hour later it was 104 and she couldn't keep the motrin down. I put her in the tub and got her calm and a little cooler, tried the motrin again and it stayed down. Then we tried the antibiotic and got an immediate and violent vomiting, her fever was above 104 and she was having chills/shaking. Jeff and I decided after all the warnings that morning, she needed to go straight in to the hospital. He took her in and I stayed with the other kids.

She apparently scored the right numbers on the triage because they took her back immediately upon arrival. The first nurse tried to give her oral meds for the fever... Jeff warned them, but hey, they have to try, right? On cue she gave it right back to the nurse (and of course her and Jeff's clothes). They then moved on to suppositories which she was not liking, and they started an IV for fluid and antibiotic. They couldn't get the fever down either so gave her something else in the IV and finally the combo worked. They also did a CT scan to make sure that the infection was not going in deeper behind the eye into the eye socket. That came back clear, so the big issue was just getting the fever down. Jeff and Jessi made it home from the hospital about 4 am Friday. They did get the fever down to 99/100 range and said that the IV antibiotics would last for about 24 hours and that gave us time to figure out how to get her to keep the oral ones down or contact her ped for more instructions. Oh yes, also a prescription for phenergan (anti nausea). She slept almost the whole day on Friday, waking up for an hour here or there for medicine, drink, and food.

By Friday night the change was AMAZING. Her eye was 80% better and she hasn't had a fever issue since then. The big deal was getting her to take the antibiotic. Not only does it taste NASTY (Augmentin), she had it associated with being what made her SO very sick the day before. By layering drink, food, phenergan, and then the Augmentin, she did keep it down. That and the fact that I appealed to her sense of logic by showing her pictures of germs online and telling her that such ucky gross germs needed a super ucky gross medicine to kill them, worked. She screws up her face and takes it like a champ, confident that she is really giving those gross germs a good beating.

This is the first day, she couldn't open her eyelid for several hours.Second day, it's open, but barely. I missed taking a picture yesterday. It was mostly open, but very bruised and purple looking all around.
You can see how much better it is! If I weren't watching it so closely, I probably wouldn't notice. The eyelid is still tiny bit droopy and there is a purple shadow all around the eye. Otherwise, it's fine.
Today (Saturday) she is acting like she is fine, but she is still tired easily. I am SO Thankful to God for putting that feeling on me that I knew I needed to take her in. I never do that... they have to be half dead and I have exhausted all my potions, herbs, and spices to go in. I certainly didn't want to go in...after all, I wasn't even officially a patient yet!

I have laid down the law. No one, for any reason, is allowed to get sick until at least November. I can not go through what we have gone through in the past two months with a newborn! And, with all my hip and pelvis problems, I am DONE for now too. So that is that. Schedule all sickies for three months post baby. Hmph.

As far as Jessi's sickness goes, this is what I have to share. Jessi is in Rainbow Kids Club at church (precursor to the scouting age classes) and for the month of July, they have a project called a "Praise Calendar", they are supposed to come up with one thing to praise God for each day and we write it down. Tuesday her praise was "daddy went back to work", Wednesday, it was "Got to go to Rainbows and learn about God", Thursday was, "Saw our new doctor and she is nice", Friday was "they took care of me at the hospital and I'm much better." Friday evening as we wrote this down, she wanted to go ahead put Saturday's praise on the calendar. I asked her what it was, and she said, "God healed me and I am all better today."

Talk about conviction. What faith! After years of serving God and experiencing his care and goodness, is my faith strong enough to go ahead and fill out my praise calendar for the next day?

Dear God, when I get too involved with thoughts of doctrine and theology and the ins and outs how God works...take me right back to the basics, the simple and all encompassing faith of a child who fully trusts that God will do what is best.