Dude, That's Sick

We have been living in a sick house for over a month now. It has not been too fun. It started the day after Thanksgiving when we were leaving St. Louis for home. I got very sick. Found out I had Bronchitis. It took me almost a month to get back to normal. Meanwhile everyone else in the family has taken several turns being sick. Someone would get sick, feel better for a few days, then be sick again. We all had our turn. And then we had it again. And again.

We have been the coughingest people alive. There was one point when we were all so sick and coughing and we were trying to read scriptures before bed and we couldn't even read because we were all having one big huge coughing attack.

Every few days for the last month someone would complain of a sore throat that would last for a day or two before it went away and then someone else would complain of a sore throat, and then someone else. Over and over the cycle repeated itself. And about every other day for the last month someone has come to me complaining that they felt like they were going to throw up. Thankfully no one every actually threw up (except for that one time when Addy did, but that is because she was having a coughing fit and gagged on all the coughs).

It's been brutal. It really has. But thankfully we are all on the mend. The kids go back to school Tuesday, and I think they can all go back without the fear of causing some kind of outbreak in their school.

The person who was hit the hardest was Zac. The poor kid. He held out for quite some time while the rest of us were hacking and coughing. He was the last of us to get sick. But when he got sick, he got sick. Like sick, sick. It makes me want to cry to think about it because it makes me feel like a horrible mother. Here's why.

He got sick about a week before Christmas. When I was at the doctor, and found out I had bronchitis, I told her everyone else in my family was sick and asked if I needed to bring them in. She said that the chance they would develop bronchitis was very unlikely. She said if their illness lasted for more than a week, then I should bring them in. So poor Z. He was sick and I was waiting out the week to see if he got over it. It was the day before Christmas Eve and I told him that it had been about a week since he had been sick and I was going to make him a doctors appointment. He told me he didn't need to go to the doctor and assured me that he was feeling much better. So I didn't take him to the doctor. Then Christmas happened. Monday morning he still didn't seem better to me and I again told him I was going to take him to the doctor. He assured me that day and also the next that he was feeling better and did not need to go to the doctor. So I didn't take him. (Stupid horrible mother)

By Wednesday I told him I was making him a doctors appointment weather he felt better or not. I called and made him one for that afternoon. That afternoon I went to the mall with my sister-in-law and the girls because Emily and Aubrey had gift cards for Justice that they got for Christmas and they were hot to use them. So while I was carefree at the mall (well as carefree as you can be with 2 girls trying on clothes and trying to make decisions that fit within the limits of their gift cards and another girl without a gift card who wanted to try on all the clothes in the store even though none were in her size). Anyhoo, carefree at the mall. Steve took Zac to his doctors appointment.

While we were in line to pay, I received a call from Steve. I asked him how the appointment went. This is what he said, "She said to take Zac immediately to the hospital because his breathing was so shallow and his oxygen level was so low and his lungs could collapse at any time. She thinks he probably has pneumonia." Comosaywhat?

Talk about freaking out. The line in that store could not have moved slower. Addy could not have made me crazier while we waited. The check out girl could not have irritated me more when she said there was a little hole in one of the shirts the girls were buying, and went to look for another one. I could not get to the hospital fast enough. And I could not think of a worse mother at that time than myself. Why did I wait so long to take him to the doctor? What if his lungs had collapsed in the middle of the night while he was sleeping? Don't people die from pneumonia? Why did I wait so long to take him to the doctor?

I finally was able to collect myself enough to tell the sales girl I didn't care about the hole, just finish ringing us up, hole and all! I took the girls over to my mom's house and left for the hospital. What was wrong with those people at the hospital? Who did they think they were making us wait so long? Didn't they know people die from pneumonia? Didn't they know his lungs could collapse AT ANY MOMENT!?!

At last they took us back. For more waiting. They did a chest x-ray and found out that he did indeed have pneumonia. They gave him a breathing treatment with more powerful stuff than we had been giving him at home. They watched his oxygen levels. They gave him a steroid and an antibiotic. Finally they deemed him stable enough to go home.

He has been like a new kid ever since. They told us that he would start to feel better in a few days, that it wouldn't be immediate. They said that he still needed to take it easy even after he started to feel better. They said that he would feel better, but that the pneumonia wouldn't clear up completely for about a month. So you can imagine how happy/freaked out I was the very next day when he was up riding Aubrey's new ripstick through the house. Happy because he felt good enough to get up and move around but freaked out because I didn't want him to overdo it. He has been getting better each day since then. Yesterday he was able to play our new Kinect for the first time since we got it on Christmas.

So I think I can say that our Month Long Sick House 'O Fun is coming to a close (knock on wood). Just in time for everyone to go back to school. It makes me sad that our whole break was spent sick. But I try not to think too much about it. I also try not to think too much about what kind of a mother would let her son linger on with an illness such as this and ruin his whole Christmas holiday. And almost die. We have one more day of break left and I intend to make the most of it. Without overdoing it, of course.

When I posted on Facebook that we had been at the hospital, My friend Coren said that we should consider taking trips to the ER out of our Christmas break tradition. Oh yeah. I had forgot all about last year's New Year's Eve visit to the ER in Dallas to get Addy's face sewn back up. I think in the future we will try to ditch that tradition.