October curse

By the way this week went, I think this October is cursed. The whole month has been rough. It has been a very rough week. I felt like it was Friday on Thursday and didn't think I could make it through Friday and it was one grand finale day.

I print the awards at the school for student of the month and personal best. I print 42 individual awards, 3 class awards and a volunteer award every month. you would have thought this was the first time I ever printed awards with how many times I messed it up and how much paper I wasted in the process. Then two were put in the shredder box with all my mess ups and they were good awards. Thank goodness that stuff waits to get sent to the shredder. And then even the teachers acted like they didn't know how the process worked. By some feat of super human diligence all the awards were ready at 9:00 this morning for the 9:15 awards assembly. That was it's own struggle along with double activities a few days this week. Two concerts on the same night at 2 different schools meant I missed one. But thank goodness Lee Joe made one of them.

Kelsea is dealing with another heavy duty round of illness. She was taken to the doctor Monday. They said it was a cold. She still went downhill all week. She went back today and they said it was probably some sort of secondary bacterial infection that set in because she was weakened by the H1N1 virus. NOW she is on antibiotics and she has missed 8 days of school in 3 weeks. Lee Joe has taken several of the girls in to the doctor these past 3 weeks. Today Lee Joe finally got a good dose of trying to deal with 3 kids visiting the doctor at once and it was all pretty serious stuff. Kelsea had her blood drawn and was tested for strep again. She doesn't handle needles well at all. Amber had some serious pain in her tailbone that got really bad over the course of 3 days. She had a cyst. I guess it was a really big one. So she was cut open and grossness took place and she is draining I guess. She has to go in again to see a doctor tomorrow to change the packing and again on Monday. Autumn went in a couple weeks ago with an infected toenail. She was on antibiotics and now it is much worse so she had parts of both big toenails removed today. They said they were in really deep. So we left the doctor with 6 prescriptions today. I showed up at the end of their visit to get the prescriptions so I could get them filled while Lee Joe took all the sick and sliced children home. Autumn's toes are wrapped. Amber prefers to lay on her stomach and Kelsea had to leave the clinic with a face mask. Visiting my doctors office was disturbing. I have gone to the same clinic since I was pregnant with Kylee. They had plastic shields covering the gaps in the glass for all the ladies at the sign in desk and there were people all over the waiting room with masks on. I really felt like I was entering into a danger zone. But I am around 500 kids all day and so many of them have had this I am not too disturbed about it and I am pretty sure I had it first anyway. But man, it is really bad here. But in our house this weekend I suppose we are calling it Recovery weekend.

So good news-Kylee tried out for honor band and made it. She is proud of herself and I am so happy for her. Only 3 kids from our jr high are in it. We know people who made it so a car pool may take place and I love that!

More bad news-Kelsea has been doing Color guard with the band all season. She missed all week because of her crud and they changed all the choreography this week, so she can't perform for DIII this weekend. She feels like she has wasted her time and I am so bummed.

Lee Joe is trying to find work. I am struggling with all this stuff. I am waiting for it to let up. I have had a sense of humor about it all and had some good laughs but I seemed to have misplaced it right now. I keep teasing Amber that she was trying to grow a tail but she doesn't think that is as funny as I think it is.

Blechyville

That sick piggy thing made a pit stop at our house and decided to stick around awhile. Kelsea has had and recovered from it. We got her into the dr right away and they gave her Tamiflu so she was sick but not in the worst way. I was concerned because her lungs are still compromised from pneumonia this past spring and I heard how someone's neice was in ICU after just 3 days and she came down with pneumonia. Kelsea had a good day on Saturday-plus she was determined to go to homecoming. She made it to Homecoming but came home early. Party the date and partly that flu. She missed 3 days of school with the weekend in between. Of course Monday child number 2 was hit. Autumn started running a fever. We got her in right away. No Tamiflu for her or cough medicine with codeine and she is my croupy cougher. I guess Kelsea was considered high risk. Lee Joe took them in so I am not sure if they told him that and he didn't remember or what. Autumn has run a really high fever for 3 days now. I called the dr this morning because she couldn't breathe this morning and I wanted some cough medicine at least for her but they never called me back until after 5. Good thing she felt a little better. Not much though. So they called in the prescription but the pharmacy wouldn't fill it because they wanted an actual signature from the dr. She has no voice from the congestion. her throat is killing her and she has the most wicked cough that hurts her throat more. I could go on more about my headache with that but I just hope she doesn't have to go to the ER. She looked a smidgen better just now going to bed. So I hope that means she is turning around. And the PA I talked to said "You know they just feel really bad." She is telling this to a mom of 5 trying to care for number 4. Yeah, I know.

So then last night I thought I was getting sick with a cold. I was coughing and my nose was miserable. My chest was hurting and I couldn't breathe. Before bed I thought I would treat it like allergies so maybe I could breathe. Then everything felt much better within a half an hour except my eyes were hurting and bothering me. I thought something was in one of my eyes and it wouldn't stop. Then my eyes kept sealing shut and My right eye got really swollen. I looked pretty scary. I had to call a sub and no one picked up my job. I went to the doctor. Tried to get my wonderful nasal spray refilled. Ran into problems with that. My insurance doesn't want to cover it. Veramyst is absolutely the best allergy spray EVER!! My doctor offered to give me a sample to get by until we figure out if the insurance will cover it so that was a trip on the other side of town. But it was worth it. That is the stuff that calmed everything down last night.

I am rambling. But basically I remember the days when a doctor visit was maybe 30 dollars without insurance. And medications maybe cost 50 dollars for an expensive one. And now everything is ridiculously high priced and so are the doctor's visits because of all the people they have to hire to go back and forth with insurance companies. In the end the insurance company is who wins out everytime. When I didn't have insurance I would get shafted with extra fees the doctors office was making up from their contractual obligations to insurance companies and now I am shafted by the insurance company and I am still paying for what they have decided is pre-existing conditions. I don't think Obama has it figured out. But I think everyone would be better off without insurance companies dictating everything. That is where the problem is. Insurance. I am stepping off my soapbox now. Goodnight.

Week of the run over

This is one of those weeks that run you over. Yeah, so 4 kids to the dentist one day ( two with cavities that I have to schedule appts for and a wisdom tooth consult to schedule too.), my dr's appt the next and figure out how 2 kids are getting home at different times and then there is one more appt to finish the week with. One has started elementary basketball, and honor choir this week. there is the school carnival. On top of one in tennis (thank goodness she can walk to and from the jr high) one in color guard and playing in the homecoming powder puff football game and the performance at the game on Fri and the dance on sat and now she is coming down with a sickness. She says it is starting like her pneumonia did. Ugh. SO yeah, I am complaining like I do so well but it really is no surprise yet the bonus is having enough cars so enough of them can drive. That's good.

There is my week and yet I have a little time in the evenings to decompress some. But I am ready to schedule myself a mental health day but I will wait until things settle down some so it's worth it.

Wait, so I have to share today. We had a 911 emergency that was weird with an adult on the sidewalk outside the school. Then another person- a friend, had a passing out episode of some sort and we almost had to call 911 again. Kids were given these little strobe light whistle things for walking to school. Having about 50 kids blowing these things on the playground at once is like some sort human torture device. NERVE WRACKING!! and then Amber's boyfriend's mom is the PTO president and she is organizing the school carnival. She calls the office and says "Hi, this is ---- I am stuck in the attic." I laugh. But I don't know where the attic is. She tells me so I find her. She is scared of heights and doesn't want to climb down the ladder without help. But she really did need another person there to hold it but she also didn't know where the light switch was so I turned on the light and saved her. Ok not really all that heroic but after our day any little boost counts right? That was almost like a week full of little crisis rolled into one and it isn't even a full moon anymore.

Nough said!!