Illness and other stuff

Sunday night was easily the worst night since Kalena was born. As an infant she woke up often, but she was always easily consoled. Sunday night she woke up SCREAMING about an hour after we'd put her to bed. And then? She spent the next 6 hours alternating between wandering around looking exhausted and crying inconsolably. She refused to go to sleep and would WAIL any time we attempted to put her to bed. At 2 am she finally gave up and slept for a whopping 3 and a half hours. As I wandered around the house in the morning with Kalena trying to let Brian sleep as long as possible before I had to leave for work, I wondered what in the world could be wrong with her. I wished that she could talk so she could PLEASE tell me what the problem was.

At about 30 seconds after 8 I called the pediatrician and set up an appointment. Brian took her in and called me afterward and said, "the doctor says she's healthy as a horse." And my heart just dropped because that meant we would just have to deal with this for who knows how long and I was pretty sure that we'd both go crazy sooner rather than later. He was JOKING because apparently he just wanted to give me a heart attack. Turns out she has strep throat and managed to spread that infection to both her eyes. (I did not even know that was possible, but apparently hands in the mouth with strep + hands rubbing the eyes = strep infection in the eyes.) Now she is on antibiotics and has eye drops for her eyes and those combined with liberal application of Motrin and Tylenol has made her a much happier camper. (And got her 12 hours of sleep last night.)

Of course I feel bad that she is sick, but it was SUCH a relief to know that this was FIXABLE and not just a phase we'd have to put up with. I feel especially bad because by Monday morning I'm guessing she'd had the infection for 4 days or so. We started noticing her eyes looked funny Friday afternoon and thought maybe she had pink eye. So we stayed around the house and didn't take her to church (you can all thank us later for not exposing your kids) and figured if things got worse we'd take her in on Monday. And we all know how that ended. BUT, I remember the only time I had strep throat it was the same sort of deal. It started on a Friday as we were leaving town for vacation (I don't remember where) so by the time I got to a doctor it had gone untreated for like 4 days and I thought I was going to DIE. My throat hurt SO much*. The nurse went through the spiel about antibiotics, the "you'll probably feel better in a day or two but finish the medication because otherwise you won't kill the infection" but I did NOT feel better until like the last day. So I'm probably coddling her a little, but hey, isn't that what you're supposed to do when your kids are sick?

Anyway, I'm glad it happened this week instead of next week when my family is all coming to visit. Which YAY, and also how did we talk them into that? Also, on that note, any tips on Kalena's sleeping arrangement while everyone is visiting? Our options are in our bed (my worry there is how do we get her to GO to sleep in there instead of just crawling out?) or a pack-n-play in our closet (she's not such a big fan of the pack-n-play...) So yeah, words of wisdom would be appreciated here.

*I found out what REAL throat pain was like when I had my tonsils out at 22. Man that sucked.