I can't really think of many positive moments from this past week. It has been a stressful, hard week and I am so glad it's over because next week has to be better than this week!
The rough patch started out on Saturday at Michael's family reunion which was at Center Hill Lake last weekend. We had a blast until the last night. Here are a couple pictures from the reunion before the madness started :)
Nana and Patrick
Spencer and I won the cornhole tournament
Patrick was so good the entire weekend, except for Saturday night. Patrick is not a good sleeper in general, but take him out of his crib and we don't have a chance of him sleeping. He was awake from 1am - 5am. Which means no sleep for Michael or I! Patrick doesn't require a lot of sleep, so even if he doesn't sleep he is still an extremely happy baby. So on Sunday, he was in a surprisingly good mood. A much better mood than Michael and I were in.
My parents took care of Turk and Bailey while we were gone, which means that Turk and Bailey had the time of their lives! They have so much fun when my dad keeps them, because they go on long hikes through the woods and get to play with their favorite person all weekend! My dad let us know that something seemed off with Turk and we should consider taking him to the vet on Monday. We noticed on Sunday night that he was extremely lethargic and not himself at all. Sunday night, Michael and I barely slept because we were both worried about Turk, but also because Patrick, being thrown off his schedule, woke up 3 times that night.
Then at 6am Monday morning, I get a call from Margaret saying she has the stomach bug and can't keep Patrick. I'm exhausted, have a full day of meetings at work, have a sick dog and find out I don't have childcare. Could it get worse? Yes, it can! I immediately text my mom to see if she can watch Patrick for the day. She responds that she can watch Patrick for the half the day. Since Michael's mom was out of town, I have no other option but to call a nanny service. I had meetings all day and it's Michael's first full week of work at PWC, so he can't help either. Since I know I am already going to be late to work because of child care, I decide to take Turk to the vet. I go to work extremely exhausted and stressed out. I have big deadlines, but all I can think about is that I have someone from a nanny service, who I have never met, watching my child in the afternoon and a sick dog at the vet (and a lonely dog at home).
After talking to my mom and being reassured that the nanny does seem nice and perfectly capable of taking care of Patrick, I call the vet to find out about Turk. Since I couldn't be there to answer all of the questions, the vet asked me questions over the phone and inspected Turk at the same time. I kept hearing phrases like "oh goodness," "oh no", "oh my," which did not sound good. If you remember from a previous post, we had taken Turk to the vet a couple of weeks ago because he had gotten in a fight with an animal. He was on medication and seemed to be feeling better, but seemed to have relapsed this past weekend. We assumed it was something to do with that. However, the vet told us that Turk had tons of lesions in his mouth and it had spread to his nose and through his throat (we thought the scrapes on his nose were from the animal). She warned us that the diagnosis was not good and that it is either throat cancer or an extremely rare form of a skin infection. She asked if she could put him under and do a biopsy to get samples to send to a specialist in Florida. We should know the results on Monday. We are praying that it is not cancer!!!!! Our dogs are like our children and it is so sad to see him in pain! Prayers for Turk would be much appreciated!
In addition to all of that, Margaret was sick on Tuesday and Wednesday so I was scrambling for child care half the week. On Thursday, Patrick went to day care. I knew he was teething, because I could see one of his top teeth coming through and he was a little fussier than normal. I sent him with tylenol hoping it would help him with the teething pain. I was told he was happy all day at day care, but when I went to pick him up at Michael's parents house after a meeting, he was not happy! I gave him tylenol and we played for a little while, then he went to bed. At midnight he woke up screaming. I went in there and picked him up and his whole body was so hot. I took his temperature and it was 103.4. Way too high for teething. I try and nurse him before going to the hospital since he is most comforted by nursing and because he won't take a bottle when he feels bad. He refused to eat, which is extremely rare for Patrick, so i'm even more nervous. We get to the Vanderbilt ER around 12:30am and it is packed!!! Once the tylenol works, Patrick starts feeling much better and starts entertaining us and the nurses.
Look how happy and awake this child is at 3am in a hospital!
The doctor diagnosed Patrick with an ear infection and gave him some antibiodics at 4:30am and we went home. The next morning I called Margaret to tell her about Patrick and she said the same thing happened to another one of the kids at daycare but that she had a bad virus. After hearing that, I was so glad we took him and started him on medicine because i'm assuming Patrick had a virus as well as the ear infection!
I especially want to thank the grandmothers for their help this week and Kara, who went above and beyond a friend's call of duty and watched my child while I went to an extremely important meeting.
Here's to a better week next week and lots of yummy Thanksgiving food!
