The things you can be thankful for.

I know it's been a while since I updated my blog..... You know I always felt blessed that my children were healthy.  My mother in law would tell me stories about how all 5 of her boys would come down with something one right after the other and I had never experienced that with my kids..... until the past 6 weeks. 

It seems like for the past 6 weeks not a week as gone by that someone wasn't sick throughout the week.  We've had pretty nasty colds, we have had every single person in the family have the stomach flu, we've had unexplained fevers as well as allergy and asthma issues.

Last week,  Sweet Pea had a fever for about 3 days.. Pretty high between 102-103 for the most part.  Then suddenly, it was gone.  Just like that.. there were no other symptoms but the fever.  The fever made her miserable and lethargic but she didn't have a cold or anything else.  We had a great weekend and first part of the week.  Yesterday however she woke up okay but by 10 o'clock she was whiny and crying and we crawled into my bed for a little snuggle.  I took her temperature (101.9) and she had a tiny nap and when she woke up she started crying about her head hurting.  Thought maybe she was getting an ear infection but when she started complaining that her neck was sore, I started to get worried.

Now normally when my kids tell me their neck is sore, it usually means their throat is sore but this was different.... Whenever I would sit her up to a sitting position, she would put both hands to the back of her head and neck and just start crying and shaking.  Thankfully Jeff was home for lunch at that point and was able to see what was going on.  We decided to send the other kids off to his mom's and I would take Sweet pea to the hospital.  Let me tell you right now, never google your child's symptoms... especially if it's fever and a sore neck.  On the way to the hospital, I had all kinds things running through my head.

God was definitely with us. It was evident when I pulled into the ER parking lot and there was only ONE car in the lot.  Even more evident when I walked in and there was not a soul waiting in the waiting room.  That's a great sign for our hospital where I waited three hours with my cut hand and I thought that wasn't bad.  Anyway, we got in to see the triage nurse right away and she took us to a room right away.

Sweet Pea fell asleep on the gurney waiting for the doctor to come in (see adorable picture above) but woke right up as soon as the doctor came in.  I had talked to her about what the doctor was going to do when he came including looking in her throat.  In her groggyness she remembered and promptly opened her mouth even while the doctor was doing something else.  hehe.  So her ears were fine, dr said her throat looked a little red, he checked over her neck, her belly and checked her urine but couldn't find anything wrong with her.  Then he listened to her heart.  He asked me if I knew she had a heart murmur.  I didn't but I wasn't surprised because both J and T had one as well.  He said that I should probably follow up with my family doctor.   He eventually said that he was going to take a culture for strep throat because that's the only thing he could think of that could cause the fever.  After he was finished with that and was writing the prescription for antibiotics, Sweet Pea started to cry again.  After prompting her to tell us what was wrong she said that her chest hurt.  So the Dr decided to call the pediatrician to see what he thought.  The pediatrician ordered a chest x-ray and an EEG for the heart murmur.  Like I said before, both J and T have heart murmurs so we've done the EEG thing before.  T was even younger than Sweet Pea when he had his first EEG.  But it never gets less scary to see your child hooked up to so many wires.  Sweet Pea didn't appreciate them hooking her up to wires either.  Got that finished and were sent for the x-ray.  She didn't appreciate that either.  The x-ray made a big noise and shook after each picture and that really scared her.

Anyway,  after the doctor looked at the x-ray he came in saying he had found the cause of the fever.  She had pneumonia.  He said they would never have known what was wrong if it wasn't for the heart murmur because her symptoms didn't meet the criteria for a chest x-ray.

So today I'm thankful for a heart murmur...even though it means that we have to follow up on that and put Sweet Pea through probably another EEG and seeing lots of other doctors because of it.. It helped us know what is wrong with her and get the right meds to help her feel better right away.

On Monday I was praying and an old camp song came into my head.  The words go like this, "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice"   Emphasize the word ALWAYS...  I remember a sermon I once heard and always tried to apply.  Be thankful in all things... even when things go wrong.. be thankful...

What are you thankful for today?