I took a bit of a break from blogging for a while. Things have been hectic at work and at home, so I haven't felt inspired to write. Good habits die hard when they aren't nurtured. I am going to try and re-establish this habit since it is fun to go back and revisit old posts about how Dexter grew from infant to toddler and now preschooler. Brixton, being the second child, suffers from the second child syndrome. I'm too busy or too tired to painstakingly document all of her milestones. It makes me feel a little bit guilty, but with 2 kids and running a business with my husband, I can't tell which way is up some days. I'll try to review what happened over the last few months.
January
The holidays were great in Kansas until everyone got sick just before we were to head back to San Francisco. We got a hotel room in Wichita to break up the trip between two days since 2.5 hours in a car and 5.5 by plane with one layover is a little much for the kids. When we woke up though everyone was so sick that we decided we should all just rest for the day and fly out the next day. We rested, but Brixton started getting worse, not better. She started throwing up everything we gave her and had horrible diarrhea that leaked right through everything every time she went. I stayed on top of it with pedialyte to make sure she didn't get dehydrated. I don't ever want to have to go through my baby getting IV fluids again like when Dexter did. She was starting to get more an more lethargic which was worrisome enough that we took her to a local Urgent Care clinic. The doctor checked her over and gave me a list of stuff to buy in order to get her on a plane the next day. We got everything and went back to the hotel expecting to fly out the next day.
The next day she was so sick, all she could do is lay there, somewhere between awake and drifting off to sleep. We took her to the Urgent Care again where a different doctor took a look at her. He listened to her lungs and had us go immediately to have a chest x-ray. An infant chest x-ray is miserable to watch. Brixton didn't feel good, but she managed to scream as they sat her on a re-purposed bicycle seat with a transparent PVC tube that went around her body and her hands were buckled high above her head. It looked torturous and she managed to let everyone know how mad she was event though she was very weak.
The x-ray confirmed what the doctor suspected - pneumonia. I'm not sure why the doctor from the previous visit didn't catch the pneumonia. She listened to her lungs and said they were clear, but less than 16 hours later she has pneumonia. The second doctor was more concerned about Brixton. She obviously had a stomach virus, but she desperately needed antibiotics to work on the pneumonia. He prescribed anti-nausea medicine with the caveat that if it didn't work, she'd have to be hospitalized. That was scary. I knew she was very sick, but not that sick.
So day three dawns and we've just cancelled our flights altogether. We aren't sure when or if we will be able to go home anytime soon. Brixton continues to throw up, just not as much as before. We aren't taking any chances and take her back to the Urgent Care again. The doctor from the first time is on call and is surprised to see us. I tell her that Brixton has pneumonia and she scoffs at that until I told her she had an x-ray the day prior. She goes and looks at the x-ray and comes back and confirms that she does have pneumonia. She recommends a steroid breathing treatment and a shot of a large dose of antibiotics. Brixton hated the breathing treatment. I had to hold the mask partially away form her face and hold her hands down so she couldn't get to it. It was 20 minutes of her struggling until she didn't have any more strength to struggle. She then got the shot and more liquid antibiotics to take. The shot did the trick and she started to come around a few hours later.
I am so glad we were in a hotel, because of how much bodily fluid came out of that little girl. I will never stay in a hotel again without thinking about that. Everyday we had to have all the sheets changed and an extra set on the side. I used towels to try to minimize the amount of laundry, but inevitably she'd either puke all over it or her diaper would leak all over it. We had to do laundry and buy more clothes because she puked and pooped on all of her clothes. We changed her 4-6 times a day. Stomach viruses are horrible.
Dexter was feeling better, so his aunts took him to a 3yo's dream place for the very first time - Chuck E. Cheese. Mike and I got a little down time which was exactly what we needed. They were in town because Mike's brother had a blood clot in his foot and was in the hospital facing possible amputation. It was just a very messed up time.
We got on a plane 5 days later than we'd planned. Brixton was still very sick and I cut holes in a plastic bag as an outside diaper barrier to catch anything seeping from her diaper. She only needed one change, but that was because she managed to puke all over our table at lunch and have diarrhea as I took her to the bathroom to clean the puke off. We made it home.
I nearly cried when we walked in because the house was perfectly clean. It had been so rough, but we have monthly house cleaning service that had come the day before so walking into a clean house was so just the best thing ever at that moment. We had one day, Sunday, to recuperate before heading back in to hell week to make up for the previous week's work.
We were stressed out, tired and everyone was recovering from being sick still. Deadlines were blown from the previous week that needed to be made up along with the deadlines that were already set. We made it to Thursday, then on Friday our nanny gets very sick. She thinks she has the stomach virus from Brixton. No worries, she'll recover over the weekend, right? Nope.
Monday, Tuesday, finally I get a back up for Wednesday because I can't miss anymore work. She goes to the doctor to discover it wasn't a virus at all, but food poisoning! She finally feels well enough to come in on Thursday, but she was so sick.
January was just nuts. It was not a very good start to 2011. January was filled with illness and stress. It is a month I'd rather forget, but we managed to get through. We have awesome clients that understood that sometimes life happens. It's not always flowers and sunshine.
