So it turns out...

Sam has had RSV.  He's on the mend now, thanks to Orapred and Albuterol.  It's been a long week and a half.

Oh, by the way, he gave it to Jeff and I.  That's why you haven't seen us lately.  We're trying not to give it to any of you or your children.  Because RSV?  Is like being hit in the head and then run over by a truck as the ocean fills your sinuses with glue. 

Here, look at a cute baby while I go cough up my left lung:





For the source of a raging plague, he's pretty cute, don't you think?

Some people have a monkey on their backs, I have a baby.

 He was just so fussy (and really, I couldn't blame him) while I was trying to cook dinner that we finally decided to backpack him.  He was interested in the boiling pasta, moderately tolerant of the spam (I know, I know...as person obsessed with fresh food,  and healthy eating, I should not broadcast my secret love affair with spam on the internet) but advertised his displeasure when it came to the velveeta.  (Don't judge me!)   He did like my ponytail though. 

After dinner (his was organic, from a jar) we tried to keep him awake the extra half an hour for his nebulizer treatment.  He was in full meltdown mode, exhausted after a day of hacking in spite of a good nap in the middle of the afternoon.  Although we were told that we could nebulize him in his sleep, the sound of the machine always wakes him up.  It seemed cruel to put him down only to jolt him awake half an hour later.   I didn't see a good outcome for that scenario.  Instead, I called Joanna to make sure that nebulizing him half an hour earlier wouldn't kill him (it didn't) and we did that.  By the time we got halfway through the treatment his cries had become high-pitched whimpers as the tears poured down his sad little face.  A minute later he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, noisy machine not withstanding.



You can see the tear track still drying on his cheek and how sweaty his little head is from the effort it takes to cry with clogged lungs.  Is there anything sadder than a sick baby?

'Tis the season.

Poor Sam has bronchiolitis again. This time he's getting nebulizer treatments. It happened virtually overnight; he's been coughing and hacking up a storm since early yesterday evening after being fine yesterday morning. He doesn't understand the nebulizer tube and why he can't eat it, shake it to death, and otherwise maim it. We have to pin his hands down while it goes which he takes just about as well as you'd imagine. All that cyring though, we know the albuterol is getting into his lungs.


PS~ Jeff's MRI seems to have gone well. No one rushed out and told us to go to the hospital for immediate brain surgery so I am guessing he's okay. We see the neurologist on Monday.

'Tis the season...

Poor Sam has bronchiolitis again.  This time he's getting nebulizer treatments.  It happened virtually overnight; he's been coughing and hacking up a storm since early yesterday evening after being fine yesterday morning.  He doesn't understand the nebulizer tube and why he can't eat it, shake it to death, and otherwise maim it.  We have to pin his hands down while it goes which he takes just about as well as you'd imagine.  All that cyring though, we know the albuterol is getting into his lungs.

Just a small fracture around the edges.

The neurologist's office just called.  They saw something on Sarge's MRI.  He has to have another with contrast, ASAP.  He's going on Thursday, when I have my migraine appointment, so we can go together. 

He's telling me it's fine, most likely just a nasal cyst he's had for years.

That's probably it. 

Right?

In the nicky noo-nah.

Sam, not me, obviously. 

My darling, clementine.

The beautiful thing about having a migraine for six days is that when it's gone, you are so intensely grateful for everything about your life.  This morning when I woke up with no pain, it was like a revelation, like seeing Heaven with my physical eyes after existing in Hell for so long.  I felt amazing.

It was a cloudless day.  The sunshine streamed into our living room in blinding rays; we don't bother with heavy curtains or blinds.  I only have sheers on the windows, privacy be damned.  Jeff  jokes that I am solar powered and I am; I live on sunlight.  That makes the migraines so much more painful; I am deprived of my primary element and I miss it when I am forced into the darkness.  But this morning Sam and I rolled around on the living room floor, laughing at each other, letting the sunlight sear through our clothes and into our skins.  It felt incredible.  I felt alive for the first time in a week.

Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart because we needed formula (and if you want to experience a head trip, go to Wal-Mart with a migraine; if anything was designed to wig an already taxed nervous system, it is Wal-Mart) and spied a box of clementines.  They called my name; I couldn't ignore them and so I brough them home.  I ate six of them yesterday, unable to help myself.  I credit them for my miraculous recovery.  They were so juicy and good against my tongue.  Each one tasted like a burst of full summer; in each segment I could taste the heat of July, the smell of sun-warmed earth, the green of new plants lifting their heads toward the sun and hot nights under the full moon.  I looked out at my garden as I ate, lying fallow under weeds and frost, blasted by this arctic air we've been getting.  I dreamed about the coming spring when eventually just the right April day would occur, warm enough to bring the baby to the neighbor's, rent the rototiller from the place down the street and plow my strip of garden fresh again.  I will plant green beans, peas, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, peppers, sunflowers and maybe corn and wild strawberries as well.  Too much for me to handle, certainly, but I'll do it anyway, like I always do.  I'll remember last year when I planted with hope, not knowing what my harvest would be.  And I'll think about this year and how the harvest is already so abundant, even before the planting has begun. 

These are the sweetest, juciest, orange clementine days.