Crazy week

This past week has been just weird. Micah woke up at 2 am Saturday morning with a fever. I didn't take his temp but I could just tell, so started him on acetaminophen. When he woke back up again at 6 (yay) he was acting cold and a little shaky and clingy. It was my day to go down to Seattle to get lab equipment, so we plugged in the DVD player for him and hit the road. He fell asleep at 10:40, about halfway into the drive, which is weird for him to fall asleep before about 1. On the way down, our realtor called and asked if a gal could look at our house (to buy). This was their second viewing, so we were encouraged. We made it down to Seattle, picked up the equipment, made a pit stop and headed home.

The whole way home Micah just looked sad and watery-eyed, just not moving in his car seat at all. We got home, threw down some lunch, put Micah to sleep, and started cleaning our house like mad. Our plan was to go to Outback Steakhouse down in Burlington with the Terrys while their trusty babysitter watched Hannah, Zac, and Micah at their house.

We woke Micah up to get out of the house by the time the people came to look at it (B & J: "Ok, I'll pick up Micah and you vacuum his room real quick. Ok, open his curtains and hide those cords. Don't forget to put those toys away. Those diapers stink. Spray something in here. "). As we headed over to the Terry's, I was feeling super guilty for leaving a sick kiddo with a sitter, but also didn't want to be an overprotective mom. When we got there, Micah wouldn't let go of me and Kimberlee took his temp with a handy ear thermometer. It read 104.3!!! No wonder he was acting so lethargic and burning up! So we waited long enough to make sure no one would be at our house anymore and swung by Arby's on the way home. It was about 5 and we were starving because we had been saving up for Outback. Then we started on an ibuprophen/acetaminophen alterating regimen and watched Wall-e as a family. Micah was in and out of sleep the whole time and wouldn't let go of me. "I want Mommy" he kept saying. He hardly ate or drank anything all day.

We put Micah down for bed at 8:30 and at 10:30 he started waking up every half hour until 1:30 am. I moved on to the couch so we wouldn't wake up Jeff (if it was any other night but Saturday, I wouldn't have cared, but he needs to rest before Sunday mornings. In fact, I would have shoved him out of bed to help with Micah.) Up again at 6:30 (yay) but Micah was acting totally normal. No way we were going to church though; I was exhausted. We started our "sing to Jesus" videos at 10:30 so we could sing at the same time as our church :) A few minutes later he had a slight fever again and, I was tired of his nasty sick breath so I suggested to him that we brush our teeth. When he opened his mouth, I saw the hugest, most disgusting tonsils I've ever seen. I felt like I had failed him on the whole fever thing, I wasn't going to fail him now! So we rushed to the first walk-in-clinic I found by the hospital and saw a PA.

She diagnosed him with a virus and prescribed a steroid to reduce the swelling and an antibiotic to combat secondary infection. Micah was a little charmer. I think he was proud of his tonsils because he said "Aaahhhh" every time she asked. His fever had gone down by then too, but she recommended that he see his doctor Monday.

So we went to the pharmacy, picked up the prescriptions, went home for lunch, gave him his first doses, and put him down for a nap. By this time Jeff was home from church. Then the pharmacist called and said that she had given Micah the wrong strength of steroid meds: three times the amount the PA had prescribed! She was asking if he was agitated, but he ended up sleeping for 3 hours. She was so apologetic and explained that it was not out of the range of what can be prescribed for his age and weight, but he ended up getting three days' worth in one. I went back to the pharm, they gave me the correct last two doses, a refund, and a gift card. I went back home and woke Micah up (at 5pm!) just to see if he was ok. He was fussy when I woke him up (who wouldn't be?) but otherwise acted normal. Praise the Lord that this mistake wasn't harmful. It may have simply decreased his tonsils and symptoms sooner than expected!

He did some funny things yesterday. He was playing happily in his playroom, so I left him to take a shower. Apparently, he did not approve, because he then came into the bathroom, stood at the end of the tub, and with a scowl, said, "Get out." I said, "You want Mommy to get out of the shower?" He nodded his head vigorously, still scowling, then stormed out of the bathroom! I gave him a bath after I had gotten dressed, then put him in his snowman towel that he wears after every bath. I put his clothes on him, but he still wanted to wear snowman over his clothes. I guess he missed him after not seeing him for a few days!

We stayed away from other kids today, but I certainly saw the effects of the steroids. Everything was intense for him. He was both more easily frustrated and he seemed extremely happy at other times--much less frequently, of course! We went to see his doc and she was impressed with how well his tonsils looked now and said that we may have the extra steriod to thank!

Meanwhile, we've been planning on having our utility room shored up and repaired. It's no small task and requires some rebuilding. At the end of October we talked to our friend's dad about doing it. I have been waiting since September to do a bacteria (harmless) lab with my homeschooling students tomorrow. I signed up in September and that's the experiment we drove to Seattle to get. Our house is some tight quarters, but I figured that I could put the crates, hot water bath, and incubator on top of the washer & dryer and just hold off from laundry for a while. Mike came by today to do some preliminary drawings of the repairs, and wouldn't you know, they want to start tomorrow? That means that we (Jeff) cleared out the laundry room completely, did all our remaining laundry tonight, they are removing the washer & dryer tomorrow, and the crates, water bath, and incubator are all in our kitchen, a dandy place to hold a bacteria lab. Awesome. I am not complaining one bit because we need a new laundry room before it falls down, but I just find it hilariously ironic that out of every Tuesday and Thursday between September and June, they decided to start tomorrow, the day of my lab. Ironically, last week, I had even thought, "Well, at least we still have an intact laundry room to hold all the lab supplies so I don't have to incubate E. coli in my kitchen!" So much for that. Don't worry, it's a harmless laboratory strain and I have bleach solution on hand and at the ready. So whoever reads this won't be apprehensive about coming to dinner. Maybe we'll come to your house instead. Can't be any worse than dissecting pigs on the kitchen table. Oops, I wasn't going to tell anyone we did that...

This week can only get less crazy. At least Micah's better. His fever made me appreciate how active he really is.