Emergency Room Visit

Thankfully, it's nothing serious (that we know of, yet).

The girls spent Wednesday - Friday with my mom, since both Steve and I had to work and camp didn't start until this week.

Steve picked them up after work, around 8pm and they got home right before 9pm. I asked Ava to come give me a hug and immediately Steve said "she wants prednisone" - HUH? That's quite the request. What's going on?

I took one look at her face and realized it was red, puffy and looked rough.

I said ok - let's start with Benadryl and let's hop in the shower and change clothes, etc.

She goes upstairs to the bathroom and I am helping her undress - and I see that her entire lower abdomen area is completely raw. Like 2nd or maybe even 3rd degree burn - looking. NOT burns, but peeling like that. Like she had rubbed it RAW. 

She even gasped and said "I didn't know it was that bad!" and hopped in the shower.

I made the call to go to the ER. Something wasn't right.

She got cleaned up and we headed to the ER.

I said "my kid's having an allergic reaction" and they took us back right away.

Once back there, I got a better look.

That does not look like an allergic reaction

So I failed to get any other pictures while we were there. We were seen by a few people and while I was chatting with the nurses, I was also texting my friend. Her son had weird spots on him the last day we were in Alex Bay. We thought maybe it was from rubbing on the tube. Or something.

Well, his came back as some general viral skin infection. They prescribed him an antibiotic and he started to clear up within a few days. She had two of her four boys affected.

I think everyone was most concerned about her raw belly. I felt SO badly for her.

The doctors took pictures and sent them to Strong for an opinion. It came back as "non specified skin infection"

I'm not panicking. This girl swam in a pond and the St. Lawrence in the last couple of weeks. 

But, I'm really glad I brought her in. I was explaining to her that it's late Friday night and I wouldn't be able to get her to a doctor until Monday. 3 days away.

This way, we got a dose of antibiotics in her right away and they filled a prescription for us that I picked up Saturday morning. So she didn't go the entire weekend with no relief.

They also recommended Neosporin to put all over the raw wounds. So we've been doing that every time she takes a dose of medicine. We wash hands, apply the ointment, air it out for a bit before putting shorts/pants back on. 

But, she IS healing. 

Poor kiddo is going to miss the first couple days of camp. 

You can see some spots on her face. I felt bad for her so when Mila and I went out, I got her this new noodle bowl. 

Perfect for her 3 minute ramen! 

See that rawness? That's how her lower belly is. Only worse. And it covers basically her ENTIRE lower belly area. Thankfully she says it does not hurt and is not that itchy. 

Oh and the other fun part? Another boy that was on the trip with us (another family) got diagnosed with ringworm. 

LOL. I mean, it's not funny. But this will always now be known as the year of the "non-specified, maybe ringworm rash"

Like, WTF, right? All 3 of our families got this weird ass rash? And for each family, it was 50% of the kids in the family who were affected. We all swam in the same river. 

I haven't had time to think whether or not I would contract whatever rash this is. 

Please God no. 

I will NOT do well. I would pick and scar all over. 

And, ew. 

After a round of antibiotics her rash seemed to clear up and we moved on with life.

About 2 weeks go by and one day after camp we saw that she looked rough, again. We didn't immediately think it was related to the first rash, as it did present just slightly differently. I treated it for a few days using neosporin again just to see if that would make a difference in a day or two.

It didn't.

I ended up taking her to Urgent Care to get looked at again.

Urgent Care suggested I take her back to the ER, because they were concered about Steven Johnson Syndrome, which is a scary condition that could happen after antibiotics. Something about how the body reacts to the medicine. But she didn't present with flu like symtpoms so I was hesitant.

But then we had to go back to the ER and we had to wait and wait and wait. Steve did come to relieve me, as I had done the previous ER visit. 

They were home within a few hours, but sadly with no diagnosis. Just another prescription for antibiotics and a strong steroid cream. 

It's finally starting to clear up, after a week of dealing with it. 

Merry Christmas!

Maybe I'm purposefully writing blogs late because I want to relive everything. Maybe.

Things will always be "different" but this year was much better than last year. 

Last year I was still dealing with the shock of everything and this year (2023) I was able to focus more on healing and the girls. Thinking about the life they deserve. 

We went to our favorite place to get another gigantic tree and it did not disappoint. 

This reindeer cow is only a year old and has 23 points! 

we went with an 11 footer this year

In her new Grinch sweater

Making cookies at Mom's house

One of my favorite days of the year

Christmas morning was hectic, as per usual. The girls came SCREAMING into our room at 6am and we told them they had to chillax for a bit to let us wake up. I swear Wiener had a heart attack when they rushed into the room like that.

Santa did indeed come and they were overjoyed. 

Finally eating breakfast

We let the girls enjoy their new stuff and relaxed for most of the day. We didn't plan to go to my mom's house until later in the afternoon. Then after presents there, we would do dinner around 5pm and meet up with Jennifer and Rob.

We weren't supposed to do gifts because Mom's taking all of us to Hawaii in March! But um, ok. 

lol, who's Milo?

So tired

Surf and Turf!

Overall it was a very enjoyable day. The kids had fun, we spent time together and then it was over. So much preparation and then it's just done.

We ate so much - Ava and Mila now love them some crab legs, lol! Here's to enjoying the next week off. 

Until next year! 

The Merriest

It's known that IRL Steve is very much "respect the turkey" and doesn't like to put up Christmas decorations in the house until it's 2 of 2 things: both December AND snowing.

I never followed those loose rules and usually had the tree up right after Thanksgiving, like normal people. And I swear, the older I get the less snow we get and if we get any, it's way later in the season...like February. Yay Global Warming (j/k)

Anyway. 

We all know last year was a complete bust. Like my entire world was demolished and there was absolutely nothing to celebrate.

I'm not gonna lie. 

Not too much has changed. Except that I survived the past 15 months and I'm somehow still surviving. 

I'm not sure if I'm lucky that I haven't broken down, or if I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for me to be admitted into a full blown mental institution. 

REGARDLESS. My point is that last year had NO rules and I put my tree up and all my decorations the first weekend in November. 

I needed something to bring me some fake, superficial happiness. 

And I got to enjoy it for longer than normal.

This year we waited until after Thanksgiving.

And we got a tree that's even taller than last year's tree. 

And it's magical.

More superficial happiness to fill the giant hole in my heart. 

It's working for now, so I'll just let it be.

Mom's house. She likes to keep it super simple. Like, SUPER simple. She's really only doing it for the kids. But my plan is to bring a new piece over every year. She won't even notice! 

This cow is only a year old and has 23 points!

Here she is, all 11 feet of her. It's a tight squeeze in this room, but I don't care. It's merry and happy. 

See what I mean? Tight squeeze. 

Decorative bowl from Aldi, I fill it with different things for each season. 

My black, white, and red tree

Merry Wiener!

I love this time of year. Regardless of what's happening in life, Christmastime just makes me happy. I love giving gifts to people and I cannot wait for a few surprises I have up my sleeve! 

Halloween

We are super lucky that our town has this iconic street right off Main Street that really does Hallween well. A majority of the homes on Howell Street go nuts in terms of decorations, costumes, smoke/fog, etc. and it's super fun. 

The girls this year were a fox and a chicken. Mila made her own costume this year and wanted to be a cat, but it was FRIGID out and opted for my chicken costume. We brought jackets and made them wear hats. 

They eventually started to sweat because of all of the running they were doing, but we're just happy it wasn't raining or snowing.

We pulled up and parked right on Main Street and coincidentally parked right behind Mila's friends and our "neighbors" who live a few miles down the road from us. So we had a chill group to walk with. These people are the people who have an alcoholic drink in their adult sippy cup. Nice folks. 

I love that they love the LoungeFly bags so much they wanted to take them Trick or Treating.

After spending a little over an hour on Howell Street, we headed over to Mila's BFF's neighborhood. This is a super nice neighborhood.

BFFs (they are twins) dad, Frank was Hagrid from HP and he got stilts. And he wore them to school and taught all day in them!!! Ridiculous. And SO fun. Their whole family dressed up as HP characters. 

We spent, again, a little over an hour in that neighborhood and towards the end, people were dumping candy into the girls' sacks. 

They really made out. 

And here's all the chocolate I got since the girls are allergic. Holy shit you guys. So much candy! 

And this doesn't show Steve's FULL gallon sized ziploc full of his own candy that is fulled with any candy that has nuts, peanut butter - so ALL the Reese's!!! - and the stuff we didn't want lol. 

And now it's Christmas! 😅