Chris and Clara attended the annual Father/Daughter tea at church this afternoon. A lovely time was had by all. I need to learn how to do braids. I made several attempts at "princess hair" and they all flopped. Between growing her bangs out and having really fine hair, nothing I do stays put. I'm an epic failure when it comes to doing my daughter's hair. She wore her special locket that was Grandma's and even got to put on a little makeup for the occasion. Robert and I napped.
I tried posting the video again and it's up there, but the quality is terrible. I think blogger made some changes to the video uploading. I'll try to get a good copy up at some point.
I just found this note on a little slip of paper:
To: RoBert
Be Qwiet!
Love Clara
She was also taking the time to compile a list of all of the bad things that Robert was doing. It has mysteriously disappeared after asking her if she would like us to start compiling a list of her wrongdoings.
Chris is almost fully recovered; he just tires easily. He went back to work for a couple of hours yesterday to get some paperwork filed. He had to fill out short-term disability and FMLA paperwork for missing more than three days of work for an illness. That seemed rather overkill to me. First he had to stop in at the doctor's office to have the doctor fill out a form.
He handed the form to the receptionist who gave it right to the doctor who happened to be standing there behind the desk. Dr. M said, "Hey, you're back. Do you need another jumpstart?" (ha ha, very funny).
Dr. M then went on to regale everyone in the office with the events that took place in his parking lot on Monday. He said, "So here's Chris with this horrendous headache, running a fever, probably feeling worse than he's felt in a very long time. So he walks out to the car, in the rain, and his wife is sitting in the car with a dead battery. She's such a sweet person though. You just can't get upset with her."
When Chris told me, I was soooo embarrassed. In fact, I'm still embarrassed. Hopefully they will have all forgotten by the time I go back in.
Chris came home sick from work last Tuesday. He went downhill quickly with a really high fever, horrible chills and body aches. We didn't think it was the flu because he had no other symptoms. No cough, runny nose or congestion. Unfortunately, the pain relievers weren't offering him much relief. He texted me on Wednesday night while I was at church and asked me to come home because his fever was at 104.5. He hadn't taken anything for awhile, so once he did, it came back down to an ok level. All week it didn't go below about 100.5 even with Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Most of the time it hovered around 103.
He was completely miserable. He was sleeping on the futon in the office and Thursday night around 1:00 he startled me awake by yelling my name and saying that he needed me. He told me he couldn't breathe (What he meant was "I'm not breathing well.") and asked me to bring his nebulizer in. My heart was racing and I started to get scared at this point. I don't get worried very easily, especially about Chris' breathing. He's usually very calm but this time he seemed to be struggling. Between the breathing difficulties and the awful shivering, we were both a mess. The treatment wasn't giving him much relief, but it did help relax him.
I kept telling him we needed to take him to the ER, but he was hesitant and said that he would get a doctor's appointment the next day. He didn't want anyone coming to watch the kids and being exposed to whatever he had, nor did he want to load them up and take them with us. He finally said that his breathing was just shallow and that his heart rate was fine, so he was ok to wait til morning. I didn't know whether or not to trust him and thought maybe he was delirious so I was crying (which again, doesn't happen too often).
After the chills and the sweating passed, he was feeling well enough to shower and then said that he could drive himself to the ER. I was NOT ok with this. At all. He was able to do some convincing though and after a few more tears on my part, he was on his way around 3:00. I know, right? Can you imagine having to live with this hard-headedness? He offered to use his headphones and talk to me the whole way there and agreed that if he started feeling sick he would pull over and I would come get him.
Well, he made it fine and everything was ok. They drew some blood and did a chest x-ray. All his vitals were fine and they said it was just a nasty flu bug. I was surprised he didn't get any saline. He had to have been dehydrated. Between everything that happened and not being able to sleep while he was gone, I got about 15 minutes of sleep between 1:00 and 6:30. Friday did not start out well for us.
He had no relief over the weekend and it got worse when he came down with an excruciating headache. You couldn't even touch his head it hurt so bad. I had to try to keep the kids from yelling and playing too loudly. That was extra fun because Robert was on breathing treatments and was in an almost constant state of meltdown. Poor Clara. We had to tell her that whatever Robert did, she had to give in to him immediately so that he wouldn't scream. I felt so bad every time he took a toy or did something to her, but Chris just couldn't not handle the noise and I couldn't get him out of the room fast enough. I think we need to treat her to something special for having to deal with Robert this past week.
I was able to get him a doctor's appointment yesterday morning. I wanted to drive him because his headaches were so bad and it was raining heavily. I dropped him off at the office, went by the bank and then came back to wait in the parking lot for him. I put a movie on for Robert and then decided to turn off the car and just roll the windows down since it was nice and breezy out. What I didn't realize at the time though was that my lights were still on. And my cell phone was charging. Yeaaaahhhhh. You know where this is going. I'm such an idiot.
About two minutes before Chris walked out, the screen went blank. And the engine would not turn on. Oh my goodness, I wanted to cry. I felt awful! It had started raining at this point and Robert was crying because his Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers had just disappeared. It just kept getting better. Chris called Big Robert from his old office which was just up the road and he came and jump started us. Just as he was pulling up, our doctor came out to go to lunch and saw Chris there with the hood open. Of course he stopped by to see what was going on. Chris said something about his wife running the battery down and the doctor looked in at me and said, "Hey, I know her. She's a nice girl." as I sheepishly wave at him. I was soooo embarrassed.
Anyway, the doctor didn't think it was flu and was leaning more towards viral meningitis because of the headache and the lack of other flu symptoms. He also prescribed an antibiotic because there was a little in Chris' lungs, but not enough that the doctor was too concerned. The nurse called today and the bloodwork was inconclusive. So it's not the flu and it's not viral meningitis but we have no idea what it is.
He felt better today and was fever free for most of the day. It did go up to about 100 a couple of times though. He was able to interact with the kids a little which was nice. It's hard to have daddy around all day for a week and not be able to talk to him or hug him or play with him or even go anywhere near him. It's also no fun being the one that has to enforce all that. I am so glad that he's almost over it and I just pray none of the rest of us gets it. It was no fun!
Nanny and Grandma came for a short visit yesterday. They got here a little before lunch and spent the afternoon playing with Clara and Robert. We enjoyed a yummy dinner of steaks and corn on the cob on the grill while the kids played in the backyard.
It was a short and sweet visit but we're glad Nanny was able to take time out of her visit to Temple to come see us.
