Our Anniversary Getaway

Jeremiah and I had our wee little getaway on Thursday and Friday.  And like everything else in our lives all this year, it wasn't without a major bump in the road.  Some of our kiddos were sick and I was worried we would have to cancel as some of the people who were going to watch the kids are immune compromised. But our small group insisted that we were to go, and they would take care of the details!  Jeremiah got sick the day before we were to leave, but felt much better the following day.  So with a bit of trepidation we set out to the coast.  We took Aubrey with us, as he's still nursing.  About 20 minutes into the ride he started to cry.  Oh boy, I thought, this may be one long ride, with more than 2 hours left to go.  I thought his cry sounded a bit 'off'.  More of an "I don't feel good" type of cry as opposed to the "I want out of my car seat" cry.  I was hoping that I was wrong.  He soon fell asleep and stayed asleep the *whole* way!  Jeremiah got out to register for the hotel room, and the baby started to stir.  So I thought I would get out to stretch my legs and pick up the baby.  I had only one foot out of the truck when the baby starts this hacking cough!  Oh. My. Goodness. You. HAVE. To. Be. Kidding!!!!!!! NO, no, no.  No kidding going on.  Let me give you a little sneak peak to what was to come:

From that moment on he sounded all raspy while breathing.  After we settled into our room we figured we would make a game plan for our day and a half stay.  The baby started to feel a little warm, and I saw my future evening being spent in the bathroom with a hot shower running to produce steam for the baby to breathe.  So we looked for a health food store so we could get something for him.  While we were there it was evident he was getting worse by the minute.  He soon started coughing and choking.  That was not fun.  So we decided we should head for an urgent care office.  Thankfully there was one right across the street.  Unthankfully, they do not take children under one years old.  Right there in the office he had another choking session and the nurse just stood there and said, "Sorry".  Yeah, that's going to help a lot.  So we had to get directions for the ER.  There were a LOT of people in the ER.  Seriously I've never been in a nosier ER in my life!  It took almost three hours before we were called up.  There was no type of triage that I could see going on.  They called us up and got a band on Aubrey and took his oxygen levels and temp.  Thankfully, even though he was having a hard time breathing, his O2 was 100%, his temp (by ear) was 103.3.  They took him back to a room. 

From there it was a long evening.  Unfortunately we had a doc who was not too understanding of our non vaccination decision.  I can't count the number of times he said, "Well, since he's not vaccinated we have NO idea what could be going on with him."  Really?  Well, maybe you can try the idea that three of his sibling have the same goop and they are fine?  They decided they wanted a rectal temp to get a more accurate reading.  Well, that really did things in, as it was 105.  Then they were really freaked out.  A bunch of tests, and blood draw later, they determined he probably (although, ya know, they can't be certain since he's not vaccinated) that he probably just had croup.  He got some Motrin and Tyenol, a liquid steroid and a breathing treatment.  It took a couple of hours, but his fever went down to normal and he was able to breathe easily while resting.  He still sounded all yucky if he was moving about or crying.  We didn't get out of there till almost midnight. Which I was glad for, as they were talking about admitting him.  And that was our first day of our getaway!!!!  Oh, I thought it was pretty funny that when Jeremiah asked for a blanket for the baby, this was when we were in the waiting room and I didn't have a diaper bag with me, the nurse said she would get him a quilt.  Jeremiah came back to our seat and told me what she said.  I thought, we only need one of those white hospital blankets.  But she came out with a Project Linus quilt for him.  So I made a joke with Jeremiah that we were building our blanket collection by collecting Project Linus blankets from various hospitals :-) 

Thankfully the baby was back to himself (well, with a cough) the next day and we went to the aquarium, did some shopping and went out to dinner.  By dinner the baby was worn out and it wasn't exactly a romantic dinner :-)  We headed back home and picked up the kiddos from our friends.  I think we pulled in around 10:30 PM or so.  What a long few days.  I am grateful that we were able to redeem the later half of our trip. I would put up some more pictures but I am really worn out.  Today was shopping day and the shopping HAD to be done.  So off I went with Moira and the boys.  We hit the health food store, BJ's and Walmart.  We still have to get some produce from another store, AND I forgot to get frozen veggies at BJ's.  I got home, the girls put things away and I was confronted with the ever present question that comes up around the 5 PM hour....."What's for dinner?"  Jeremiah said we could go out to dinner, but something tells me that with our trip and the added ER trip (which we were not counting on) we are going to be a wee bit tight come the last few days of the month.  So that means I need to think of something.  We are all getting really sick of the same four meals that I've been cooking for the past 6 weeks or so.  I might try some turkey sausages.  They are supposed to be made with ground chicken, but that was a lot more expensive than the ground turkey.  I think it will be an egg and sausage night :-)  Off to cook din din.