I get by with a little help from my friends...and family.

If you follow me on any other sort of social media, you'll know that last week was quite a week. Quite an unpleasant week to put it mildly. I won't be getting into the nitty gritty medical details because that's Jonah's story not mine but I do want to have some writing therapy of my own to process my part of it.

It started in the middle of the night right before Easter, Jonah woke up in pain. It seemed bad so we were waiting at Urgent Care before it opened Easter morning. They had us in and out and we thought he'd be back in business within 24 hours. Well, 24 hours came and went and things seemed worse. So I took him to the Children's ER. They totally blew me off and sent us right back home. This whole time no one is our house is really sleeping because he's in pain and my momma gut is screaming, "things aren't right!" Well, after a few more doctors calls, trying to get test results from Sunday that I've been told will be ready by Tuesday, we're told to wait until 72 hours to see if antibiotics are just taking a long time to work. In the middle of the night I decide, "I don't care what the experts are telling me, something's wrong, we need to go to ER." So J and I head in again, this time to a different Children's ER. Right away they know that what we thought was the issue, was not the issue and it seems like we're finally on the right track. But then they send us home. I'm not confident that we can handle follow-up at home, I think the issues is a little more severe than they are telling me. We get home, he's still in pain. I contact a specialist I know in that area and he's curious as to why we were sent home and seems to think that was not the right course of action. That's just the confident booster I need to stick up for my baby and send him back in. I say send him back in because at this point, I haven't slept a single second in 36 hours (and only an hour or two at a time for the few days before that). The last night he was up crying every hour so I was sitting by his bed and when he was able to drift off, I was able to watch him and try and breathe knowing he'd start again soon. So I not only didn't trust myself to drive, I wasn't even sure I could stand up much longer. Craig and Jonah went in (if you've lost count, we are know up to visit #4!). And the ER doctor this time was totally on board, he needed to be in the hospital for a while. That was Wednesday morning. He came home Friday evening.

That's the basics of it. The highs and lows of my emotions were pretty intense. Sending him with Craig was quite possible the hardest thing I've ever done. It made sense, Craig is a great dad and did wonderfully with him, at that point he was in a better position to think and make decisions that me, a tired emotional basket case, and he does a lot better with all the needles and tubes kinda stuff and could stay with Jonah while all those were put in place whereas I have to leave the room unless I want to end up on the floor. But it hurt my mom heart to not be with him so much. But once he was admitted, we tag teamed for a day until my aunt flew in and picked up the pieces we were starting to drop so we could both be with Jonah at the hospital.

She was a huge blessing. Just getting off the phone with her knowing she was going to go get a ticket, I felt a huge burden be lifted. And with Craig and I having to tag team between Jonah/Hospital and Girls/Home, I didn't have him as the emotional support I really needed so I needed it from friends and other family. And I'm really blessed to be able to say I got it. Friends who brought us dinner, or picked up my aunt from the airport, or answered phone calls at inconvenient times or sat in the backyard while our kids played and let me shower and vent and fall apart. And prayed. I know we had so many people praying for him. And please keep praying. We're home and he's doing good but we've got some work to do to keep him doing good and some follow-up appointments to make sure their isn't a more serious underlying issue.

And I know this probably goes without saying but boy do I love this little guy. He was such a trooper. He had all sorts of tubes going in and out and tests run and very little sleep because it seemed like the worse things would always happen just after he fell asleep. If you don't know, he's really shy so all the strangers asking him questions was not his favorite thing. But he didn't complain and was a model little patient.  It was odd because I'd look at him and he's seem all at once so big and yet, so little. Seeing him in pain and all he wanted was me or Craig near him and his baby cow on his pillow and he was just this little baby to me. But then he'd hold still and only say "ow, ow, that hurt" when painful things were done to him and he just seemed like the bravest big boy I'd seen.

And when he was doing better we called Grandma and all he talked about was the Lego set he was given as a prize for being "super brave" during one procedure and how he was "watching lots and lots and mom said that was okay" (yes, baby boy, you can watch as many movies and Paw Patrol as you want this week!). We're still dealing with some emotions from the trauma of it all and a bit of pent up naughtiness but I'll take it!

 On our way home!

So that was our crazy week! We've actually got another crazy week coming up but for much more pleasant reasons that I hope to be sharing soon. Never a dull moment here.