the plague

When Reagan was about a week and a half old, a nasty sickness popped up at our house. Truth be told, some of it had been there since October, but we didn't know it at the time. It started with Luke having the beginning of what seemed like a cold. His nose started to run, he was coughing, wheezing, and it sounded like he had some junk in his chest. He's had the same exact thing a few times over the past few months and we had let it run its course before, but I wanted to make check to see what it was for sure this time because I didn't want Reagan to catch it.

So I call the doctor's office, casually explain his symptoms, and try not to panic when they tell me I have to get him the doctor right away. Apparently the wheezing and junk in his chest were really not good signs. My first outing with two kiddos by myself was hurriedly to the doctor. (On a side note, I was pretty proud of myself for managing it in a time crunch. I didn't forget anything or anyone!) They were able to get us in fairly quickly and as it turns out, Luke was really struggling to breathe due to a pretty rough case of bronchitis in addition to the cold he had. They started him on a breathing treatment to help bring his oxygen levels up and I had to physically restrain him the entire time. Poor guy was so scared and didn't understand what was happening. The nurse tried to help me feel better about the situation because screaming can actually get the medicine where it needs to go more easily. Nice try lady, but I still felt horrible.

Luke's breathing treatments at home. He did really well if I put on his favorite cartoons and he was allowed to wear the oven mitt. I apparently missed the fact previously that it had some kind of magical super power. Lesson learned.

When Luke is sick, he snuggly and crazy. He didn't mind taking a picture or two with his mom and when he had time to play, he wanted his "ho ho's" on. Ever since Christmas when he figured out who Santa was, Luke has referred to beanies and mittens as "ho ho's" because he thinks he looks like Santa. I'm glad that Luke never had a fever because this would not have helped his cause at all.

A few days after Luke became sick, Reagan started coming down with some of the same symptoms. She was  congested, had a runny nose, and unlike Luke, she was super crabby. I don't blame the poor girl; two weeks old and sick already. Not the best start to life! As soon as I called the doctor about her condition, she had to be immediately seen as well. There isn't anything that you can really do for a cold so we were told to make her as comfortable as possible. By the time we went in for Reagan's two week well check and Luke's recheck appointment, Reagan still wasn't any better and Luke had developed his first ear infection-in both ears.

Reagan's typical confused face while she was sick. "Why can't I breathe Mom?"

As the week went on, Reagan began projectile vomiting if she ate more than 10 minutes and we had to take her to Phoenix Children's Hospital Urgent Care to have her deep suctioned because she became so congested that she could hardly breathe.

By the time the sickness was removed from our home, Reagan had had her first visit to Urgent Care, we made the trip to the doctor's office four times in a week and a half, we became proud owners of a nebulizer, we learned Luke has an aversion to antibiotics being administered through a syringe into his mouth, and I became much more adept at handling projectile vomiting. We survived, we're healthy, and that's all that matters.