This Season.

I have gone without hot water before. I have lived without heat during bitter winters on occasion. I have seen my daughter fight for her life for the first 3 months of her life in NICU. But this season of my life is clearly the hardest. 

Having kids is definitely no easy feat. No matter how many you have. Having two simultaneously sick kids, while being sick yourself is definitely harder in my book. 

With Dorothy having had pulmonary hypertension at birth, and also having Panhypopit, sickness in our house is something we can't afford to mess around with. We have no sickness wiggle room with her. We are currently on a very strict schedule of every 3 hour Albuteral nebulizer treatments, every 6 hour Pulmicort neb treatments, every 12 hour oral steroids, once a day antibiotic, 3 times a day oral Musinex, twice a day Flonase, and then her regular three times daily meds for her panhypopit. Whew! That's a lot of meds for such a tiny baby! 

Add to ALL of that, Johnny is also on Albuterol neb every 3-4 hours, Pulmicort every 12, Flonase twice a day, an antibiotic and Musinex ever 8 hours. 

If/when either of them run a fever, we add Tylonol to that list. 

 

I feel very, very overwhelmed for the first time in a very long time. It's not even doing all of the work, because Darren is home for the weekend and has taken control of the situation 100% by making me a handy chart to keep track of everything. He even let me nap yesterday with John while he took care of little sister and let me sleep all night last night while he did it all for Dorothy again. 

It's just thinking about the amount of meds and the frequency of them for both babies, that literally brings me to tears. We are struggling to simply (so so so not simple) Dorothy out of the hospital. 

And as for John, this stuff is dangerous too. Our peditrician isn't sure if this is RSV or something else, but I know they caught it from me. 

It started with a runny nose and a scratchy throat about a week ago. I figured it was probably allergies and just kinda toughed it out the best I could, blew my nose often and drank warm things to help soothe my throat. By Wednesday, I had fever, even more head congestion, and a cough that was producing a lovely shade of green mucus. 

I tried to keep as much distance between the kids as I possibly could, but being a mother that is only possible to an extent. It was a bit easier with Dorothy because of our nurse who's here three days a week, but with John it was next to impossible. We slept in the same bed, I made his meals, changed his diaper, and he rode with me in the car while either her nurse or Nana watched Dorothy. 

All in vain apparently, because both of the babies are sick and I'm hoping against hope that Darren does not get sick also.

We are having a heckuva time getting Johnny to take his oral medications but he seems to be doing okay with his nebulizer treatments, he doesn't like them but he puts up with it at least LOL.

What are some ways that you've gotten your kids to take their medicine?