End of May

{5/20} We have a new family in our ward.  Single dad, three kiddos.  The middle son, Kael, has autism and has acquired a pretty big chunk of my heart, too.  The second Sunday they were in our ward he had a breakdown in Primary-screaming and having a hard time-so I carried him {kicking & screaming at me} out into the hall.  I was on the verge of tears because our Stake Primary presidency was visiting, Annette was teaching, and Erin was at a meeting downstairs for all the secretaries.  Christy, the Stake Primary President, came out {she was in Kael's old ward}, and talked to me.  I broke down because I felt so overwhelmed, unequipped to handle him, and sad for him because he was so frustrated and couldn't express himself.  I felt like his eyes were looking into mine and his soul was screaming, "Hear me.  Understand me.  Please!"  I just felt consumed by love and compassion for him and wished I could do something more.  His dad came upstairs and I felt so embarrassed that he saw me crying on the floor with Kael beside me.  He reassured me that some days are just hard and you never know what is going to set him off, but then he just said, "Thank you."  When he left Christy said, "He was thanking you for your compassion.  He could see your love for Kael and your desire to help him and that means a lot to any parent."  After a bit, Kelly brought him upstairs and he was happy.  He said, "Kael, I think Sister Cleaver needs a hug."  He came over, sat on my lap, and hugged me.  He put his hands on my cheeks and communicated in the ways he could.  Since then, I've had the privilege of getting to know him better, sitting with him, being in awe at his genius, and loving him more.  I love the kids in the primary.  Every single one.  They all have a piece of my heart.  I am grateful for the lessons they teach me.

{5/20} Happy birthday to my sweet dad!  What an amazing man.  So so grateful he was born and that he lived well, found my mom, and had me.  Since having kids I get a little emotional every time I see pictures of my dad with me as a little because I understand how much he loved me and still loves me to this day.  He says it and shows it often.  He is an example to me of all things good and is patient and adoring of my boys.  He respects the way Zac and I are trying to parent, shows us by his example how to be better, and continually makes me want to be better at serving others.  He is genuinely selfless.  Love love love him.  Zac had the idea of getting some little dents in Dad's car pulled out.  He was giddy about the idea of doing something Dad would really like because he is always giving so much to us.  Dad was so cute about it when I gave him the homemade gift card about it and Zac was happy to drive the car over both ways to get it fixed, too. (;

We spent time with both families today and are grateful for those memories. 

More happenings:  Lots of fun health coaching.  Coloring keeps the boys busy in the car.  Boys at Taylor's.  Haircut time again {surprise for mom}.  LOVE uncle Talon and all his helpful skills!  Visits to Grami's.  Dinner to a friend who had surgery.  Putting graduation gifts together.  Dancing to an Adele bluray, Amber's having a BOY baby, Zac took Dad's car to the shop for him & stopped by to show his brother Ryan.  He loved it.   We also started t-ball {separate post coming someday}.

{5/23}  I took Bex to Dr. Matt's for the first time because he was coughing like crazy and it seemed a lot different than a regular virus.  He was more lethargic than usual, too.  He checked him all over and said he thought it was a virus.  He mentioned whooping cough {pertussis}, but didn't think it was that because he'd been immunized and is an otherwise happy & healthy kid, so of course I didn't think it was that, either.  It was just a weird cough, though.  He sent us home with the regular orders for a virus, including the advice that he was as contagious as any other virus and not to worry about keeping him away from people. 

That night, Lance, Kelsey & their boys came over to our house along with the other siblings.  They announced they were buying a house/farm!  And, sadly, moving to another ward.  That was a bummer, but totally excited for their new exciting news & this giant step in their life!  We could sense their excitement and giddiness and are just so happy for them.  It was cute that they would get us all together to tell us, too.

Beckham just continued to get worse and the cough was sounding more and more foreign to us.  I began to think maybe he had swallowed something that was lodged in his throat because he sounded like he was trying to clear his throat everytime he coughed and he would cough to the point of throwing up often.  He would bend over, turn colors, cough as hard as he could without breathing {so so scary, by the way}, and then once it was over-he was fine.  He'd say, "I okay." and go on with his life.  Totally sad for him because he is such a happy go lucky kid and it totally wiped him out.  After one of his episodes {as we began calling them}, he'd just lay his head on my shoulder sometimes for up to 20 minutes and be totally exhausted.  It was as if he'd run a marathon in that tiny little body.

We had a busy weekend with Doll's graduation party and family in from out of town.  We were surrounded by my family-including the boys faves, Abbey & Sadie-and enjoyed the time with everyone, but really worried about Bex.  He would play with the girls & then stop to have an episode.  Mind you, everyone around us realized what was going on couldn't be a normal virus-it sounded so scary & awful. 

Nights were the worst.  He had episodes at least 4 times an hour through the night, so he and I slept in the living room for about 14 nights straight.  He was sleeping, but would bolt upright, cough to the point of throwing up at least once, and cough to the point of scaring me every other time.  Then-exhausted-he'd lay back down til the next one.  I held him helplessly a lot and kept wishing the doctors would have to come stay a night with us and realize what he was dealing with.  Car rides were no fun either-especially when I was driving alone with the boys because he'd have an episode and start panicking because he was buckled in and couldn't bend over, so he'd freak out even more.  It was so so so scary!

The weekend was even worse than before and I took him in Memorial Day {5/28} morning to the only open clinic in Fruitland.  We waited over an hour, during which time he had 2 episodes in the waiting room, and of course none once we got back to see the doctor.  Because she was a family doctor and not really as familiar with kids cases, she wasn't sure what was going on.  But, we'd been dealing with the bad cough & sleepless nights for 7 days at this point and she prescribed an antibiotic which we started that day.  I also used the nebulizer with albuterol in it after a few episodes, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Spent the evening at the Cleaver house with the whole fam for a BBQ & celebrating Em's birthday.  Bex coughed like crazy, but was otherwise his cheerful and sweet self.  Both boys enjoyed themselves and being around their cousins.  And, Grayson was SUPER brave & climbed to the top of a huge pile of sticks & was so proud of himself.  I love his growing independence.  He's a great kid.

That night it came to the point of thinking we might need to take him into the ER and have his throat scoped or something.  I called the Pediatrician's line and luckily Dr. Matt was on call.  I filled him in and he told me he didn't think it was something lodged in his throat because we'd be able to hear a wheeze every time he breathed and other symptoms.  Because of the throwing up with at least one episode a day/night, he thought we better test for pertussis on Tuesday when the office opened.

The next morning {29th} we got there first thing and he was doing great til Becca had to lay him down and swab him.  He screamed, started coughing, and had a major attack, ending in throwing up all over.  She said, "Is that what he's been doing?"  Yes!  Thank you for validating me! (:  Dr. Matt came in, she told him what had happened, he checked him out {everything else was totally fine, by the way}, and we were on our way home to wait 3 days for the results.  So here's the thing.  I had been worried about his oxygen levels because everytime he'd have an episode he'd turn different colors and basically stop breathing.  They checked all that and he was good.  Next, the antibiotic the family doctor had put him on the previous day was the antibiotic used to treat whooping cough, so if the test did come back positive, they'd really done all they could do.  And, if the test came back positive, we'd be dealing with the cough for at least 3 months.

Sure enough, a few days later-Friday-the test came back, the call came, it was positive.  Ugh.  They take communicable disease outbreaks very seriously and had to treat our entire family and then asked who we had "exposed."  Right.  My entire family-including much extended family who'd been around him for Doll's graduation, Zac's entire family for Memorial day, etc.  Everyone went in to get the immunization-which has changed, by the way, so go get yours if you haven't yet, and they treated L&K's family because of baby Winston, and some other family members.  Wow, what a pain!  We had already pretty much felt quarantined for about 3-4 weeks, but continued to do it for another 2 weeks.  Beckham missed about 2 months of church in all, and we even canceled nursery for 2 weeks. 

After it was all said and done, I'm not upset with Dr. Matt.  I don't blame him or anyone else.  Do I wish we would have just swabbed for whooping cough that first day?  Yeah.  But, I understand why he didn't.  We were all assuming the immunizations were doing their job and he'd gotten some random coughing bug.  I get that.  And, he was 100% supportive throughout the whole 2-3 week experience and the 4+ visits to his office in that time, along with several phone calls.   Also, I'm still very pro immunizations.  I know that's not everyone's view, but I still believe the pros outweigh the cons in this regard.  I also believe our generation is completely clueless and unprepared should a more serious outbreak of disease catch us all off guard.  Very scary.

Zac had a business conference for Cricket in San Diego for a few days and that left me home with the boys.  He left on Wednesday {5/30} and was gone til Saturday {6/2} and we missed him!  My hat is OFF to my single mom friends.  It is a tough job.  I have lots of helpers around me, and I still felt the void of not having Zac there to bounce the day off when we laid in bed at night.  The boys and I slept all over the place as Bex was still struggling quite a bit with night episodes while Z was gone.  We did a major clean up throughout the entire house to de-germ and that felt awesome.  The boys were really good overall & we were all so happy to see Zac when he got home!