the day the $h!t balloon hit the fan

It has been the week from hell.

On Mother’s Day Julianna woke up with a fever of 101. We had to skip church anyway because I was cooking for a bunch of family and hadn’t been able to prepare enough the day before. I got up early and went to the grocery store and immediately came home and started cooking while Jonathan took care of Jules. After an exhausting morning of cooking, we finally (better late than never) sat down to eat lunch and Meltdown The First began. After no one could convince Julianna to sit down to lunch, she finally requested to go to bed (it was already an hour past her naptime and she was still running a fever). As the family began eating, I put her down for a nap. She slept and we ate. Then shortly after all the cleaning up and coupon clipping we had to journey over to my sister’s house. She was kind enough to cook for my mom, her MIL, and me for Mother’s Day. I know all the work that went into that dinner and I truly appreciated it. Since Julianna was still running a fever and was being pretty whiney AND she had skipped lunch and not eaten until 4pm when she woke up from her nap, she did NOT want to eat dinner. So we dealt with an uncooperative toddler during that meal (FUN!) and were late getting her home for bed.

That night her fever got worse (102/103ish) and she starting gagging on each dose of Tylenol/Motrin. After changing her vomit-covered outfit multiple times throughout the night with each dose of medicine, we finally got a few measly hours of sleep.

Monday brought a higher fever and more whining. We mostly just stayed around home trying to rest. I had to be somewhere Monday night but when I got home and saw her shivering uncontrollably with fever after her bath I almost cried. Unfortunately, because she was refusing to take the medicines (or couldn’t keep them down) Monday night and early Tuesday morning her fever spiked at 104.4 and I was up with her pretty much all night. She begged me to sleep with her and so I tried. More puking, more changing, followed by a decision to go to the doctor first thing in the morning.

The doctor said the strep test was negative, the urine test was negative for a UTI, must be viral. Bring her back on Thursday if she still has a fever over 100. I decided I’d had enough of dealing with the gagging and the refusal to drink the medicine and Meltdown The NINETITH so I went to buy chewables and suppositories (wheee!). We went to my parents’ house after that where Julianna took two naps (and fortunately I did too!).

[I realize that I’m interrupting myself here, but did you know that acetaminophen suppositories are over $1.30 each?! What a rip-off! Isn’t it bad enough that I have to stick my finger in one of my daughter’s body cavities, the one that poop comes out of, but then the stupid drug companies have to rob me silly at the same time? What’s that all about?]

Sorry. Back to the story of my week.

Tuesday saw another night of high fever and no sleep, but luckily no gagging or puking because of the new meds. Wednesday things began to look up although we were both beyond sleep-deprived. We napped at my parents house again (it’s amazing how much a little bit of sleep can change everything). Wednesday night Julianna was still running a low fever (around 100) so Jonathan stayed home from Bible Study to care for her and I went without them. It was so nice to get out even if only for two little hours.

Although she still had a fever on Thursday morning of 100.4 we didn’t go back to the doctor mainly because I felt that she was getting better. She’d rested better the previous night and I just knew it couldn’t last much longer. We weren’t planning on doing anything on Thursday or Friday, but as luck would have it, a newborn baby was thrown into the extended family mix and the need for me to watch Julianna’s cousin for a few hours arose Thursday afternoon. Then because of some miscommunication I had to drive an extra 30 minutes to pick up Jonathan at lunch and Jules was late for her nap again and it was painfully evident that she was overtired. We journeyed to the hospital to visit last night and then came home and crashed again.

Today, Julianna has only had a 99.7 (at the most) degree temperature. She CLEARLY still does not feel well at all. She has not stopped whining since first thing this morning. She still has a bad cough, runny nose, and is gnawing on her index finger constantly. After lunch I just couldn’t take it anymore and had to give her some Tylenol since she was just painfully obviously not feeling well. That has made her do better, but I swear every single time she even slightly bumps into something she breaks out crying to beat the band. She whines and cries each time I tell her no and she has deliberately disobeyed me more today than she has the entire month combined. I know she just feels miserable, but I don’t know what else I can do to help her.

I cannot emphasize enough just how exhausting this week has been. When we went to the grocery store this morning she cried pretty much the entire time. I tried bribing her with bubbles, with a free balloon, with the promise of a cookie when we got home. Nothing made her happy. She ate no breakfast; she ate no lunch; she only took a one hour and fifteen minute nap. She let go of her balloon in the den and it immediately floated up and got tangled in the ceiling fan and Meltdown The OneZillionFiveHundredTrillionith ensued. I cried along with her. We have a full weekend ahead of us and I don’t see a good way out of any of it. I just know that something’s got to go, but I don’t know what.

I am about to pull my hair out.

AND YES I STILL WANT ANOTHER BABY DANGIT!

TGIF, right?