A Little Catching Up

Please don't pass out. I really have been making "mental" posts for quite sometime now. I just finally have time to put them on the blog. Life the past month and a half has been crazy with a capital C. We have had leaky toilets and ceilings and more throw up than I really want to remember. In fact, Sariah is sick again today. Now I know why moms say they dread the winter -- being all couped up in the house sharing germs back and forth. It all started the week of Ally's birthday. If you don't want all the gory details, stop reading now and just enjoy the pictures. This is from my journal entry on Jan. 30th.

It all started on Ally’s birthday, January 10. Sariah started the day throwing up. So we all stayed home (except Joseph, of course) and took care of our big girl and tried to make it a special day for Ally. It was a good thing Ally wanted a simple birthday cake. By that evening Sariah had pretty much stopped throwing up and I was hoping she was on the mend. We had a fun birthday party with Aunt Emily. Friday morning Sariah was not better. She was done throwing up but was now running a fever. She spent the day in my bed watching movies and taking little drinks when I could talk her into it. I do have to back up a little. The weekend before we discovered that our toilet in the upstairs bathroom was leaking from the base. Some water had even leaked under the wall into the closet in our room. Luckily the carpet and pad dried out just fine. Part of the wall next to the tub was also wet. We discovered all this on Monday night at about 10:30 pm. On Tuesday a neighbor, Max otherwise known as Grandpa Carter, came to help look at a few things in an effort to help us avoid a call to a plumber. We finally came to the conclusion that the wax ring on the toilet might be leaking. So I grabbed a wax ring on the way to get the kids from school and thought Joseph and I could fix it that night. I do need to mention at this point that on Monday and Tuesday afternoons Joseph goes straight from school to class at UVSC. He does not get home until at least 7:30pm. So, Tuesday after the kids were in bed, we removed the toilet. Easier said than done. There was definitely trouble with the wax ring. We actually had two wax rings, one inside the other. Neither of them was doing us much good. This is when we discovered that our floor was in trouble, too. We decided to call in back up. Dad Anson said he could come on Saturday morning and help us take a look. So we put the toilet in the tub (where it still is by the way) and moved all of our bathroom stuff downstairs. And we waited for Saturday.

On Saturday morning we woke up to find Zac, Ally and Brook now had fevers. And, despite their elevated temperatures, we were all freezing. Our furnace had died sometime in the night. Luckily, our bishop is a heating guy. We knew we needed an ignitor for our self-ignighting furnace. If we could get the part we needed, he could install it. The trouble was finding the part. Since it was Saturday, all heating part stores were closed. Any call to a technician would result in an after hours fee. In the meantime, Dad arrived and the boys started to rip up our bathroom floor. I was downstairs with four sick kids. I pulled out the bed in the sofa and lined them up and turned on some movies. I took temperatures, dosed out Tylenol and got countless drinks of water. Needless to say, most of the day is a blur. As it turns out, Dad knew a guy in his ward who does furnace stuff and he just happened to have the part we needed on his truck. So Dad drove back up to Pleasant Grove, got the part, and came back. The Bishop came back over and put it in for us. By about three in the afternoon we were warm again. Our floor was another story. There were two different sub floors on top of the original floor. The top floor was linoleum on particle board. The particle board fell apart in their hands, so they had to get rid of the whole thing. Again, easier said than done. Next was more linoleum. Only about half of that floor was rotten. They pulled up what they needed to and theen turned on the fan to dry out the wood underneath, which was luckily just fine apart from being wet. Joseph also sprayed the floor and bottom of the walls with bleach. The smell was strong enough that we all slept downstairs. (Little did we know, that would be the beginning of musical beds.)

Sunday the kids were all sick still. I was in charge of Sharing Time and Singing Time in Primary. Joseph had to conduct Sacrament Meeting and speak. So, he took off for his meetings in the morning. He came home just in time for me to gather my stuff and head out. (Our meetings start at 1pm with Primary first.) I rushed home. Joseph ran out the door as I ran in. He came home and was here for about two hours before he was back out the door to the Priesthood Preview. In the two hours he was home, our great home teacher came over and they gave Sariah a blessing. She was still very lethargic. The other kids were sick, but would still eat and had moments of playfulness. We were all exhausted by the end of the day. And guess who else now had a fever – me. We sprayed more bleach in the bathroom and fell into bed.

Monday morning Sariah looked worse. I knew I needed to get her to the doctor. Brook’s cold was worse as well and I was worried. Zac and Ally still had fevers. I called and made an appointment for the girls. I really did not want to drag all four kids to the doctor, especially since they were sick already. My prayers were answered again and Max came to sit with Zac and Ally. Sariah had strep throat and the doctor was pretty sure that Brook had RSV. (Never mind that Sariah never complained of a sore throat and I asked her several times if her throat hurt. I felt like a loser mom.) Brook’s lungs still sounded good so we did not have to do any breathing treatments or hospital stays. I stopped on the way home to fill Sariah’s prescription. When I got to the counter to pay, it was about 10 times as much as I had expected to pay. I was a little hesitant and told the pharmacist I had no idea it would be that expensive and that I had filled a prescription for strep throat two months before that was no where near that expensive. He immediately went on the defensive and told me he had already mixed it up. I was almost in tears. This was about one straw too many. (And why is it that I always hit one straw too many in public?) I held it together and a calmer pharmacist came to my rescue. He explained that the prescription I had filled before was probably amoxicillin and that this Rx was for augmentin which is much more expensive. He kindly called the doctor to see if a substitution was acceptable. It wasn’t. So we bought the expensive medicine and hurried home. I was about at the end of my rope so I did what I always do at that point, I called my mom. It was therapeutic just to hear her voice. She told me that I was doing the work of angels in caring for sick kids. I asked her if it still counted if I was having less than angelic thoughts and saying less than angelic words. (I have to admit that I let fly a not so nice word when I discovered that after lunch Ally had purposely dripped red Gatorade all over my bedroom floor. It did come out with a little scrubbing. I did not cry even though I really wanted to.) We laughed and she told me to hang in a little longer. Which I did.

Tuesday I discovered that not only was the antibiotic expensive, it also gave Sariah diarrhea. Yeah for me. Since we were using the bathroom downstairs and Sariah is not very fast on the stairs, you can imagine the fun times we had. I finally put a Pull-up on her and called it good. Sariah was feeling better by this point. Zac and Ally still had fevers, but at least Brook seemed to be doing a little better. I was still feeling a bit sick. So we hunkered down for day six of survival sick mode. Tuesday afternoon I talked to Amy and told her my saga. We laughed together and she jokingly asked, “How much worse can it get?” I was about to find out.

Wednesday Zac and Ally still had fevers. It was day five of their fevers and that is when the doctor said we should probably bring them in. Plus I was having mommy guilt thinking that they probably had strep throat too and I had done nothing for them. So I made an appointment for that afternoon when Joseph would be home to stay with Sariah and Brook. Both of them were definitely on the mend. But another problem was brewing. Since starting potty training in earnest, Ally had had some issues with constipation and fear of having a bowel movement on the toilet. She had not had a bowel movement in a week and was starting to withhold her urine as well. I know that is a lovely thought. Just wait. So, we went to the doctor and he said they definitely had sore throats and nice colds. The strep test was negative. He said if they were still running fevers on Saturday, to call him and he would call in a Rx. Then I told him about Ally’s potty problems. He said it was time to get aggressive before it got any worse. His idea of getting aggressive was an enema. Poor Ally. I think she was a little embarrassed. After the nurse was done, we had to wait to see if things worked. She was running around the exam room almost in a panic. She kept telling me, “This is not good.” Well, it worked. I probably spent 20-25 minutes with her in the bathroom cleaning everything up. Zac in the meantime had to hang out by himself. He was so good. The nurses were so nice. They were actually quite happy that most of it got on the rug since they hated the rug in the bathroom and now they had a reason to get a new one. Anyway, we got Ally and the bathroom all cleaned up and went back to the exam room to wait for the doctor. Since we did not have extra clothes for Ally, we had to wrap her up in a paper gown. Well, while we waited for the doctor, the enema worked again. This time it got all over her shoes and the floor in the exam room. (I actually ended up throwing her shoes away. I felt so wasteful, but it was pretty bad.) I was embarrassed and Ally was just distraught. I kept having to tell her that it was not her fault and that she was just fine and that I was so proud of her and that she was doing great and that her bottom was going to feel so much better. She kept responding with, “This is not good. I am never going to the doctor again.” I felt so bad for her and so did the nurses. They gave her and Zac one of just about every sticker they had. The doctor gave us a Rx for Miralax which we give to her twice a day now to keep everything moving. (I am happy to report that we are making great progress and she is doing well. I don’t know if it is the Miralax or the fear of a possible repeat trip to the doctor.) So we came home, gave Ally a bath and the two of us curled up for a nap while Joseph fed the other kids dinner and then hurried to the church.

We kept Sariah home from school for the rest of the week. By Friday (the 18th) fevers were gone and bowels had returned to normal. We were excited to feel well again and were looking forward to making great progress on the bathroom floor the next day. We decided to go to Home Depot and get tile for the floor. We went and even got Wendy’s while we were out. It felt amazingly good to be out of the house with healthy kids doing something normal. We were out of the woods, almost. When we got home, we discovered that the light fixture in the upstairs hallway was leaking water. The carpet underneath it was soaked. I just laughed. What else could I do? Poor Joseph. I think his stress level hit an all time high. It was late and we could not do much else besides get the kids in bed, pull up the carpet and put a fan on it and put a bucket under the drip. We called Dad and asked him to bring his ladder in the morning. We told him why and he thought we were joking. We assured him we were not.

Saturday morning Dad came to our rescue once again. The boys crawled into the attic and found that a pipe to the swamp cooler had frozen and broken. They were able to replace the broken pipe and hauled wet insulation out of the attic. We caught the problem in time and as far as we can tell, there was no major damage. The rest of the day was very productive. By the time they stopped (thanks to Marc for renting a tile saw on his way to Payson to help) the tile was down in the bathroom. We spent the evening with Mom and Dad. Mom had surgery on her other foot and was still unable to get out of bed much. We had not been able to see her yet because the kids were sick. We had a nice visit with them and Marc, Liz and Rachel.

This story is already way longer than it needs to be and most of the drama is over (I hope) so let me sum up. We spent the rest of the next week grouting and sealing the grout and giving it all the in between drying time. We decided that as long as the bathroom was torn up, we might as well paint. We had hoped to do that on Saturday (the 26th) but the day was too full. I had a stake Relief Society Enrichment meeting that I was looking forward to (the speaker was Ardeth Kapp and it was wonderful – a much needed break for mom) and Joseph had promised the kids they would go to a BYU basketball game and it was $1 tickets. Plus, it was Mom Anson’s birthday on Thursday and we wanted to go wish her a happy birthday. So we did. The painting had to wait.

That brings us to this week and the paint is still waiting. It is hard to do at home by myself with the kids. Saturday (the 2nd) though it is happening. This week we have had another bout of throw up on Monday and diarrhea on Wednesday – both Sariah. I think we need to be about done. Although in prepping the walls for paint, I have managed to make a few holes in the walls (removing old nails and screws and towel racks, etc.) and I may have broken the sink. Plus we think the sink may also have a leak of its own. Maybe someday we will have a working bathroom again. We will.

That ends the journal entry and I will bring you up to speed. The sink was in trouble but Joseph and Dad got it back in shape. We have finally painted and fixed yet more toilet leaks. Tomorrow Joseph thinks he can finish up and we might have a working bathroom again. I really hope so.