Life is like a box of chocolates. . .

Friday's motto: Life is like a box of chocolates. . .you never know what you're gonna get!

I took Josiah and Simeon to the doctor Friday afternoon for followups on pneumonia and burst eardrum. . .Josiah is doing great, a little perturbed to be missing out at school. Simeon still complaining that his ear is plugged. The doctor checked Simeon and said there was still a lot of wax in there. So, they tried to wash it out. Finally moved the "wax" enough that the doctor thought she could grab it with a little tweezer thing. "Hmmmm. . .this is really hard. . .it almost looks like some sort of foreign object. . .I think we'd better send you to a specialist to get this thing out." So, we took a trip to Sioux Center (just 15min away) to see the specialist between surgeries. Simeon was quite a trooper. The specialist said lots of kids have to be sedated in order for him to dig in the ear enough. Well, he pulled out a little air bb ball that Simeon had put in his ear at some point. (Simeon says, "maybe when I was three?. . ." ) Judging by the amount of wax behind the ball, it had been in there for a month or more! I can't believe that he just started complaining last week that his ear was plugged. The specialist said that it might have just moved a bit and really plugged up the ear. Anyway, cleared out a lot of wax. . .have to go back on Monday to try and get the rest, after a weekend of eardrops/hydrogenperoxide. And 2plus hours later, we return home with a little bb wrapped in a paper towel for Simeon to show off! I just hope it's a trickle around lesson for all to learn from!!

A week of sickness

Whew! What a week it has been! It started Thursday night with Josiah writhing on the bathroom floor in pain. At one point, he cried out, "Jesus, please take the pain away!" It broke my heart and I was ready to take him to the ER,, but the pain seemed to subside and he finally slept. It returned again in the morning, along with a temp. When Josiah said the pain was so bad he wanted to go see the doctor, I took him to the ER. (He, of all my kids, is the most terrified of doctors/hospitals/pain.) I was pretty sure he had a ruptured appendix. However, we found out he had pneumonia. Apparently, in children, pneumonia symptoms often present themselves in the stomach area. Josiah was quite bad, looking toxic, and was admitted to the hospital. He had to have three vials of blood drawn, and an IV put in. I was so proud of how courageous he was! He kept saying, "This isn't very fun." The people in the ER were especially wonderful with him, answering all his questions about the procedures of drawing blood and putting in the IV, and being honest with him about pain and what was going to happen next. His fever finally broke Friday night and he more "normal" by Saturday. He was ready to go home and very teary when the doctor told him he would need to stay one more night. "My eyes just get watery because I miss Zeke(our dog) so much," was his comment.

As I sat in the hospital room, watching him so sick and then recover quite quickly, I was reminded how quickly life can change. There are so many people I know right now with significant health issues and long hospital stays which are so tiring. I don't know God chose to bless us with a quick recovery for Josiah, but I am grateful. I am also grateful for the special time with Josiah "wanting Mom," while he was sick. Once he felt better, he kept his Dad and Grandpa Clark quite occupied playing video games with him. The two things he reported to his teacher when he returned to school on Tuesday were that he had to have an IV and he got to play video games! It is so nice to have him back to himself.

Of course, with Josiah home from the hospital, the other two boys decided they needed to get sick too! I was so much more nervous watching them in what any other time I would have considered a normal virus because of what Josiah had just gone through. Simeon was the worst, having a 103plus temp at one point. The weird thing was that he was acting so normal. Not really eating, but wanting to color, read books, and chatting with us normally. I finally took Simeon into the clinic on Tuesday and found that he had a burst eardrum. I was so surprised as he never seemed to be in very much pain. The doctor also gave me nebulizer treatments for Ezra who was so stuffed up he could hardly breathe. Today they are both acting more normal, and I enjoyed vaccumming, doing laundry and generally cleaning the house this morning - the little routine things that make life seem under control!

I am so grateful for medicine, good doctors, and kind nurses as well as many friends and family who are concerned for us when we are dealing with things such as these.