the sickie chronicles...

Oh, Zac... he gets home tomorrow after livin' it up in Liberia for the past 18 days. That's a long time. It's not a LOOOOONG time, no, but a Long Time. And, as seems to be the case when he leaves, "fun" and "wacky" things happen. Like the house alarm going off oddly and freakily. Or, even better, strange illnesses and medical issues. Like when he went to Miami while we were living in Uruguay and Bran dislocated his elbow.

We haven't had a lot of sickness in our house, thank goodness. I mean, the kids get runny noses occasionally, but really, they're a pretty healthy little bunch. Almost the entire community of embassy kids was passing around a nasty bug during the winter, but Bran and Nuala (and Maeve) dodged that sucker with nary a sneeze. Or a tummy gurgle, I should say, since it was one of those things. No... that's not true. Bran got a fever one evening and I almost sighed with relief. "Phew. Finally we've got it and now can just get it over with!" But he woke up fine in the morning and that was it. The extent of our winter illnesses, despite being out and about and socializing with abandon since I figured, "if we're gonna get it, we're gonna get it." But we didn't. And, we are not flu shot people. Many of the other little guys and gals did get the shot and came down with this or that bug anyway.

But then... THEN, Z went to DC for a week. And the chicken pox decided that was the PERFECT time to come a-callin'. I can barely count that as an illness... the kids were itchy about twice a day, but it was a pain. Maeve skated through in the clear. This go-around, with Zac in Africa, we had another strange bout of illness.

This picture does not illustrate weird illnesses in any way. I just thought we all looked cute. And Nuala and I are wearing our Women's Day necklaces, that a nice lady named Tanya made for all the women at church. They are beautiful and she really personalized each one, noticing what the ladies usually wear, etc. Mine is earthy-toned. Nuala's is sparkly purple :) Thoughtful, thoughtful people here, even when they don't have much.

First, I want to say that I had a fun little St. Patrick's Day playdate planned. A bunch of N&B's little buddies were going to come over and do fun Irish-y things. But alas, a couple of days prior to that, Nuala got a little bit sick. Just tummy complaints (no puking or anything, only complaining), a fever, generally feeling sorta yucky. No big deal, really. She had a big bloody nose on Tuesday, while watching cartoons. She came in to me, as I was still dozing in bed, with her hands cupped and a bloody little wad of toilet paper nestled inside, under her schnoz. "Look, Mommy!" I blearily sat half-way up, squinting at her... "whaaa..? Ack! Nuala, what happened!?" She proudly said, "My nose was bleeding, but I took care of it!" And so she had. There was a little polka-dot trail of blood in my bathroom, but overall, nicely taken care of.

Next day. Wednesday. Bran's speech therapist was downstairs (she comes to our house once a week, we go to hers once a week), so the girlies and I were up. We were in Maeve's room, trying to motivate ourselves to organize it, when Nuala exclaimed, "Oh!" Yep. Another nosebleed. Totally spontaneous. There had been no digging, no prodding, nothing. And man, this one was a GUSHER. She soaked through wad after wad of tp, even with me applying constant pressure. Then -- THEN -- her eye started to bleed. Oh, my. Blood was coming out of her tear duct. It was pretty freaky. I didn't perform well, at first... I need to work on my "calm Mom" demeanor, but I pulled myself together pretty quickly and steadied us both. She also started to complain about the back of her neck hurting during this waterfall of blood. So, yeah, I called the doctor. And yeah, I took her in.

Now, this incident came at a very inopportune time. It was 11:40, and I myself had a doctor's appointment at 1pm. An appointment I had to make two months in advance. I was very bummed to have to miss it, but of course Nuala's issue took extreme precedence. My friend who was going to watch the kiddos while I was at my appt. came over at 12 and off Nuala and I went to the embassy. Long story short (oh wait, missed that cut-off, didn't I?), Nuala was given as clean a bill of health as possible (just a normal virus, quite swollen lymph nodes) and "had blood taken out of" her. Poor girl. She was not pleased about that. Blood counts, etc. came back normal, thank goodness. Apparently her massive nosebleed was just so... massive.... that it was using any exit it could find. Blech!

AND THEN... (it's okay, this is a good "and then") we were back in the car at about five minutes to one. "Hmmm... I could make this work...." I thought. After frantically calling a friend for the number of another friend who had the correct number for the clinic I had to be at since of COURSE the number I had wasn't working, I got through! The doc said it was fine... come in late! And so I did. Ah, might as well say it. It was an appointment at a fertility clinic here. But that's all. Just a very initial consult. We're not sure what we're going to do, but we were just exploring our options. So this is not even an announcement of an announcement. But, this information is somewhat necessary, since I then committed a huge blunder in infertility etiquette. I showed up at a fertility clinic with a child in tow. That is cringe-worthy. I felt really badly. I did feel a little better as I looked at her sitting miserably in the waiting-room chair, dried blood on her face, hair disheveled, somewhat whiny (hey, she did feel cruddy)... I'm pretty certain my huge, grubby, grumpy 4-year old was far removed from the vision of sweet newborn cuddles and toddler grins that fill the minds of these clinic-goers. Still, it was lame and I'm a bit ashamed that I was one of "those" patients, but it takes two months to actually get in! I apologized for bringing my child to the front desk ladies, and to the doctor, and they totally blew it off. I even warned the lady I spoke with about coming in late, because I would have very much understood if they didn't want me to bring a child, but they seemed to be confused as to why that would be a problem. Logically, I know that people are far less "coddled" in the medical community, etc., here, but I still felt badly for maybe hurting someone who is struggling.

Anyway, I rescheduled the playdate for the following Tuesday and the next day, a lovely St. Patrick's Day, Nuala was fine. Low fever, but fine. We had a low-key day: read Irish stories, listened to Irish music and danced, followed clues to leprechaun treasure in the backyard (peanut M&Ms), watched some of Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Friday the kiddos went to the embassy to decorate disgusting teddy bear cookies. They were cute, and it was fun, but the cookies were pretty gross. The candy on them was good!

Saturday, the tykes and I somehow actually made it to the embassy by 9am and caravaned out to Lopyan orphanage. I did not want to go. I DID want to go, but I did NOT want to manage the little trio solo. But go we did, and I'm very glad we went. We pulled up and several children darted away from the big group that was crowded around the first embassy arrivers. They raced over to us, yelling, "where's the baby?! where's the baby?!" Have I mentioned before that Maeve is a big hit? Yeah, she is. Unfortunately, she had fallen asleep about four minutes before we pulled up, and was not a happy camper. She was still a big hit. It was an exhausting trip, for sure, but I always leave there so glad we went. Sweet kids.

Sunday after church the missionaries came over. They're our home teachers, so after eating dinner and playing a lot of swordy games, they taught a little lesson. It was fun :) Awesomely, Nuala started hacking up a storm during that time.

The next day (Mon) she was feverish and sick again. She went to bed that night still feverish and sick, so I cancelled our St. Patrick's Day playdate that had been rescheduled for the following day. Very lame. Of course, she woke up the next morning (Tues) feeling oodles better, it seemed, but then Bran got hit with a strong fever at about 11am until 5-ish. And that was that. A few hours glassy-eyed on the couch, and then he was up terrorizing Nuala again. That boy really seems to just knock out his bugs -- it's very cool. Then this morning (Wed), Nuala was up at 4 with an earache. An earache? She's never had one before, why can't we just stick to the issues we've already been having?? So... an earache all morning that went away after putting drops of oil in her ear... then half of a steamed onion over her ear... then lemon juice inside it... Not all at once, mind you, but with space in between. I had just barely used up the rest of my garlic. Exactly what I needed. Something worked, because it went away right AFTER I called and made an appointment with the embassy nurse. Also, she was curled up in a ball complaining about her stomach all day... until we went in. And actually had been complaining about it for over a week now. No vomiting, no diarrhea, no constipation, just an uncomfortable stomach. No sharp pains, either. Anyway, she had no ear infection, no nothing... just a virus, again or still... whichever. Still has lots of throat drainage and big ol' lymph nodes. More lemon drinks, herbal concoctions and Tylenol in her future.

Eeesh. That was long. And mostly for me. I almost feel badly for you if you read it all... I'm sure it was pretty boring, but I wanted to document it since I'm slightly OCD that way. Right now (almost 11pm), the poor girl is fitfully sobbing about her ear. :( Poor baby. The nurse said she doesn't have an infection, just some extra earwax that is probably pushing on her eardrum... Also her lymph nodes are still pretty swollen right under her ear, so that's not fun.

But, Zac gets back tomorrow!! Woohoooo! We're all quite happy about that! Quite happy, indeed. This is how Maeve feels when Daddy's gone (or when she can't get ahold of the camera)...