Wednesday

Wednesday night finds Tonya MOST grumpy in the Lone Star State.  Here's the latest.  Clara made it through the swine flu with no complications and returned to school the following Monday.  On her first day back at school, she managed to fall off the monkey bars and injure her wrist.  We watched it for a couple of days and she consistently continued to complain, so I took her in to the Urgent Care to have it x-rayed and make sure she was not broken.  Well, her wrist was NOT broken, however...the growth plate IN her wrist apparently IS.  And so...after a nice visit with the orthopedist, Clara came home in a hot pink cast which she will wear for precisely 4 long weeks.  Once the wrist was set in the cast it was amazing how quickly it started to feel better.  We were blessed to have a visit from Gigi and Pee Paw from Tucson.  They came out to Texas, checked it out, did some house hunting....and are excited about joining us here in Texas.  But a few days into the trip, Pee Paw got sick with a cold, and his cold soon turned into something ugly.  And that something ugly landed our poor Pee Paw in the Baylor Grapevine hospital for two nights.  He was discharged by the skin of his teeth early this morning, just in time to catch their flight back home to Tucson.  In the meantime, Clara developed a headache and sore throat that would NOT go away.  When she also started complaining about her ear area I made an appointment with a family practice here and took her in to be checked out.  They said there was nothing...her ears were clear and her throat, while slightly swollen on one side, was pretty good.  So she was given a clean bill of health and I promptly dropped her back off at school.  All was well for roughly, the next 13 hours when, at 2:30 a.m. Clara awakened me from a deep sleep crying about her "supposedly" healthy throat and headache.  I got up and gave her some ibuprofen, and on a whim, took her temperature.  103 degrees!  Yikes!  The kid was obviously NOT healthy and was indeed quite sick.  After calling 6 different doctors on the insurance list and being told by all six that they were only accepting newborns or newborns to age 3 or newborns to age 6....I was a bit frustrated.  And so we headed back to our old familiar urgent care...where I truly believe the very best of the best doctors in the whole Grapevine, Colleyville, Southlake area work!  They knew right away that Clara indeed had SOMETHING and set out to solve the great mystery.  They swabbed her throat for strep, which came back negative.  Then based on how crazy swollen her glands in her neck were, they guessed MAYBE mono....and a very difficult (for mommy) blood draw later, we were in the clear for that too.  At this point I must interject that there is NOTHING more painful than watching your baby be stuck and poked and prodded and having to sit and listen to their heartbreaking little cries of pain and fear.  I was there telling Clara that it would only hurt for a second and that we would have a BIG big treat afterwards and that she could totally do this.  They came and stuck the needle in her arm.  She, of course cried and went into mild panic mode while I....sat there and deep breathed and willed it to be over in a course of seconds.  Of course...it wasn't.  And after a minute the nurse said that he thought that the tube he had selected was maybe bad because it wasn't working so hot.  So he left the needle sticking in her arm to go run and grab another while I was left to comfort Clara.  At this point I was starting not to feel so hot.  It was really taking so much longer than I imagined.  I was no longer looking at Clara or her needle in her arm...but at the far corner in the opposite direction.  I was telling her, emphatically to breathe deeply and blow it out...but I was talking to myself.  I was patting her little back....thumping the heck out of her really is more like it and telling her it would all be just fine....and all the while I could see the edge of darkness there, playing at the outside of my vision.  The room was getting so hot and the darkness was creeping in...threatening to suffocate us (well...me, mostly).  Finally the nurse changed out the tube and finished the draw and the whole ordeal was over.  As soon as he left the room I thought that Clara should really lay down.  Truth be told, I was dangerously close to falling over and blacking out and thought it might be beneficial if we BOTH laid back for a spell.  After a few minutes, the darkness receded and my stomach settled down and I found I could start to breathe again.  I wasn't long before they came in with the news that the mono test was negative...but her white cells were nuts and very indicative of an infection.  We were given a good strong, broad spectrum antibiotic and some oral steroids to help with the swelling in her throat.  Official diagnosis?  Acute Tonsilitis.  

Anyway....Unfortunately, juggling Clara did not leave me much time to hang out at the hospital with poor Jim and Jackie.  I finally managed to escape for a couple of hours late on their last afternoon here.  I'm glad I did because it was the the last chance I had to say goodbye to them before they headed west again.  In hindsight...it might have been best that it all worked out that way.  That way there were no tearful goodbyes with the kids.  I'm not good with tearful goodbyes.

And so Gigi and Peepaw are now resting at home, in their own beds....and I  have had not only Clara home with her tonsilitis, but also Ben with an upset tummy today.  And honestly....at 9 p.m. tonight I am just DONE with all three kids.  Totally and completely done.  I'm tired and frustrated and absolutely at my wits end.  It has been a loooooooooooong day and I'm feeling more than a little cranky right about now.  I guess that pretty much catches things up.  Grrrrrrr.