I am a tired CVS mommy. I feel badly saying that because it's only October 27 but my kiddos are sick, again. Colin caught another cold (first year of preschool... germ-a-thon) and he is a snotty mess. Every time he talks Brian and I instinctively say, "aww, poor little guy." It's that kind of cold, total congestion and a low, low grade fever. Anyway he passed it to all of us. Brian and I are doing alright but Ellie's body is fighting, fighting, fighting. I sort of saw this latest bad CVS spell coming but we pushed forward anyway, and, well, I feel like we dropped the ball, sort of. It's hard figuring out when to go ahead with plans and allow Ellie to be "normal" and when we should cancel plans (and then cancel them again and again).
Back-up, The story:
For Brian's birthday, which was in September, he asked that we go to this really fun water park hotel that we sometimes stay at when we go up to Wisconsin to visit his Dad's side of the family. The kids go crazy for this hotel and if we were being totally honest, Brian and I love it too. They have all the typical family friendly amenities in the rooms plus a super fun water park right inside the hotel, a deli/concession "restaurant" in the water park area, there is a place to ride horses, a babysitting service, a fireplace in your room, etc., etc. Our kids are in heaven when we go there.
Now the last time we were at this hotel, we surprised Ellie. We didn't tell her we were going to it and when we pulled in the parking lot she went crazy (excited, happy, squealing) and then suddenly grabbed her stomach and complained of pain. This time was not a surprise but it was a perfect storm for CVS. She and Colin had their flu shots on Wednesday afternoon (before I realized Colin was coming down with a cold) and while the flu shot does not give anyone the flu, it does appear to be rough on Ellie's system. There have been years when we didn't do the flu shot, or we just didn't give her the flu shot, but last year she had bronchitis a handful of times and then with pneumonia a few weeks ago... well, we wanted to help her build up any immunity that might offer any amount of coverage for her. Pneumonia is known to be a possible "complication of the flu" especially for people with compromised immune systems--so, it's worth it for us to give it a try.
Anyway, she woke in the middle of the night with a fever the night of their shots, so did Colin. I kept them both home from school to try and rest and prepare for our fun family weekend, which we had already canceled and rescheduled twice. I didn't realize this (because I have been lazy about changing and hanging our "poop chart" in the kid's bathroom) but Ellie didn't poop the entire week last week (five days come Friday). So basically the CVS storm consisted of tiredness, immune system fighting the flu shot, total constipation and then total excitement.
Friday afternoon we arrived at the hotel around 4, got ourselves settled, ate a little dinner and headed down for some play time. At about 7pm we decided to head back up, Ellie's tummy was hurting by this point so we were headed for bed. But we went too far, we missed our parental cues. We were so swept up in the excitement (simply on behalf of the kid's happiness) that the CVS bulls-eye struck Ellie straight on and she had an episode like I hadn't seen since last Christmas. It went from zero to 50 in a matter of minutes. It was so sudden (except that it wasn't had we been paying better attention)--she was watching a cartoon on tv while in pj's and having a few before bed crackers, then suddenly tons of agony, yelling for me (I was in the shower), screaming (a new element for Ellie's pain reaction), crying, begging to hurry with her medicine, white as a ghost, dripping in sweat, shaking, shaking, shaking. I sat with her, half showered in my towel on the bathroom floor. I calmed her down, we did slow, deep breathing, lots of soft caressing of hair, turned the lights down, talked quietly and waited for the meds to kick in. She had a decent bowel movement and then we quickly, gently, quietly got her into the bed. She groaned and groaned that her tummy hurt (that's the migraine part--it's a deep, intense sort of pain, not like just when she is constipated or has some cramps, this is deeper and clearly more painful). I was shaken, and felt bad that we had missed so many of the cues--or at least we had decided to risk it and go ahead with the plans because the hotel wasn't going to let us push our non-refundable room back for a third time.
The rest of the weekend was cautiously fun, sort of, mostly... It's hard to have a lot of fun when you are constantly on guard. Ellie woke up the next morning in a much better place but was also getting Colin's cold. She didn't eat much for breakfast and we decided to skip the pool in the morning and just go to the ridiculously expensive game room instead. Colin napped, but Ellie was too excited. We saw Brian's Dad for a few hours (special Grandpa time) and then we couldn't push it off any longer and we brought them back to the pool that night. She did fine--she tried to keep her body calm, didn't do any of the slides (her idea/choice), just played and splashed, and Brian and I were very conscience of the time and getting them to bed by 7:30.
But, as it goes with our beautiful, bright, loving, sensitive, silly, loud, extroverted, intelligent, sweet girl--that episode was the beginning of a really rough week. Horrible sleep, mini episodes (the more normal kind--not so dramatic and painful) and a few days home from school fighting yet another miserable cold. What that means for mommy--literally 24/7 duty. Zero breaks. No putting the kids down and having an hour or two of "me time" or "adult time" or any time (with or without useless quotation marks!!!). And it can really wear on a person in the middle of the rough week or two. During this last bad week there was a moment when I realized I had been with a kid or both kids for 24/7 without more than a ten minute break for five days straight--I think I took the dog on a walk once in those days for about 15 minutes, and of course I showered. Other moms might be better at those long, sustained time periods--I am NOT good at it. I am NOT a good mommy when this happens. I need breaks to sustain my healthy/happy mommyhood-ness. Even just two hours at night would do it.
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I never published this post. Things got better and I just forgot. Here is what I've come to realize: Ellie's health swings back and forth. She has a few good weeks (so good that I forget how trying the bad weeks can be) and then she encounters a virus or over-stimulation/exhaustion for some reason and has a bad week or two and then back to a good few weeks. In the winter is seems like this pattern is much tighter, meaning there are less good weeks and more bad weeks. I think it's just because of the flu/cold season and being around germy kids all day at school and less sleep and less sunshine etc., etc. In the summer we can go for almost two months without a bad week. So, I guess what Brian and I have to do is figure out ways to keep ourselves strong so we can remain sane during the bad weeks.
But, life is always moving, never simple, always full--for better and worse. Brian is in the middle of a bad week(s). I had semi-major stomach surgery and can hardly walk much less lift anything or put a kid to bed or much of anything else. My Mom is here helping thank God and she is working super hard, she basically is doing everything I would be doing. But poor Brian has taken a beating. He has put the kids to bed every night (he wants my Mom to have that mini break to sustain her) and often has had to get back on to his computer/phone calls for work after their bedtime. The last two weekends he has pretty much been in charge as well--because I am stuck in a recliner chair, healing, healing.... And now... it appears... Ellie is about to start a hard streak. She is sick (another cold) and has been sleeping AWFULLY the last few nights. This means, zero breaks for Brian. Family is stepping up. My brother and his GF babysat and we went out to a movie on Sunday (that meant 2.5 hours kid free/work free for him), but from experience I can tell you that when you go 24/7 for even 3 or 4 days straight, you start to lose your sunshine.
I don't even know why anyone would want to read about all this--as one of my brothers said, "it's just life." But, for us, it's CVS life and it can be tiring. The unpredictability is the hardest part I think. For me, writing it out is healing/freeing. I suppose a post such as this one is more of a complaining diary entry than a blog post, but I think I'll "publish" it anyway. Because there is just something about writing it down and sending it to the universe--wondering if anyone has felt this way, wondering if any other parent feels this pulled down now and again, wondering if this vent session might bring a feeling of solidarity to some other family with a child who has CVS or mito-disease. Here's to hoping...
