The Last Week…

This last week has been chaos. A little excitement in life is fun, but this week has been way over the top…

Last Monday night, Gabe was brushing his teeth and managed to fall off of the counter straight in his forehead. He cried for a long time, but eventually he calmed down and got better, so we got him an ice  pack and put him to bed.

Tuesday morning he woke up sick. He was lethargic, his head hurt and he felt nauseous. So I packed the boys up and took him to urgent care. Well, first I took him to get a covid test, which he needed for his appointment later in the week. Then I dropped Josy off at school and then took Gabe to the clinic. They took one look at him and sent us straight to the ER.

After some needs to help with the nausea, he perked back up. They didn’t do a cat scan, but told us that enough time had passed that he’d probably be fine as long as he didn’t hit his head again in the next few days. They didn’t use the word concussion, but it was written in his discharge paperwork. It helped that we already had a mri scheduled for him a few days later…

I took him to work with me and he played and did art projects and had a wonderful afternoon. He was back to his normal self.

Wednesday morning, he and I flew to Seattle. That’s a whole post all by itself, but the short answer is that it was really fun to hang out with him.

Thursday was mri day, so most of that day involved being at the hospital. We survived, and I’ll talk about that more later. We flew home that night. When we landed at home, I turned on my phone to a bunch of missed calls and texts from Pat and the ER. A good friend of ours was having an extreme medical emergency and they were trying to find someone to help with her kids. That’s her story to tell, so I won’t go into the details here, but by the time I landed, her 9 year old was asleep at our house, and the 7 year old and the 16 year old were at the hospital. After I got home at 11:30, the 7 year old got dropped off at our house also. I tried to convince the 16 year old to spend the night too, but she said no.

Friday morning, Pat took the three big ones to the elementary school. I dropped the 16 year old off at the high school and then took Josy to school. I was able to work for 30 minutes before I had to leave for my doctors appt. While I was waiting, I got a call from the school saying that Gabe had slipped on the ice and got the back of his head. Since he’s had a head injury three days earlier, they needed him picked up. Note: that’s two head injuries and a head mri in four days. So Pat picked him up and took him to his office, which actually worked out great, as he got to work on his car for the pinewood derby and I don’t actually know when that was going to happen. He’s fine, but I can understand why the school was being cautious, given all of the head drama…

I finished with my appt, which just happened to be at the hospital, so I stopped by the ICU to check on my friend. Oh dang. It was bad. I legitimately thought that we were going to lose her or she was going to need permanent nursing care, and they didn’t have a good reason for why her body was reacting like this.

Friday night, some of her coworkers got us pizza and we watched a movie and ate popcorn. That seemed like the best thing to do at that time.

We watched the old Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. The boys tuned out the one romantic scene. 🤣🤣

Pat and Gabe went to the pinewood derby weigh in, and the 16 year old went home and packed some clothes for the little kids and then went home. My friend got discharged, but we kept the little kids, as caring for small people just seemed like too much stress for her.

Saturday morning, Pat and Gabe went to the pinewood derby and Gabe managed to get 2nd place overall. He won every heat in his pack.

Saturday afternoon, I took the 7 year old with me to run errands, which was fun. I may have tortured her a little by taking her with me to the pool to work out, but not actually taking her swimming. But I bought her a snack and some fuzzy Christmas socks, so I think that made up for it.

Then we stopped by her house so she could give her mom something that she’d made. I also got to talk to her mom for awhile and it was good to see her acting so much more normal. Definitely not completely healthy, but night and day different from where she was the day before at the hospital.

Sunday morning, we packed up the kids and went to church. As soon as we got there, the 9 year old got sick. We were thinking that maybe he was homesick, so Pat took him to see his mom for awhile. He ended up legitimately being sick, and I felt bad leaving him there, but every kid would rather be sick at his own house, with his own mama. I spent the day asking her if we needed to take him, but the 16 year old was there with them, so they were okay. Instead we got to have a quieter day with just the 7 year old and our kids and I think she needed that.

And here we are Monday morning and I’m on a plane to go to a doctors appt in another city, and Pat has to get three kids out the door for school by himself…

So let’s recap. In less than a week we’ve had two head injuries, one ER visit, one mri, two different doctors appts for me, two trips out of town, one life threatening health crisis and three extra kids. At least Josy’s okay???

Oh, and this was my boss’ last full week of work before retirement and the first week of our busy season. Because why wouldn’t this all happen at the exact same time???