I know I haven't blogged in over a month. Believe me, I DO have an excuse. At the end of January Jared and I found out that I was expecting. By week 5 I was feeling queasy and tired. By beginning of week six, I was having trouble doing simple things around the house and taking care of Luke. I had to start leaning on friends quite a bit. By the end of week six, I could barely sit up. By week 7 I was useless. Luckily we have a GREAT ward and WONDERFUL friends. My friend Keegan volunteered to set up a schedule to arrange for people to take care of Luke. Someone from church took Luke every morning and someone else took him every afternoon. I cannot express my gratitude. Often I cry because I feel so overwhelmed at the kindness that people have showered on us. I am so thankful. In general, I also just cry.
I have to send a very special thank you to my mom. She came to save us the end of February. I was 8 weeks, and I couldn't stand up without getting sick or blacking out. And on top of that, Luke got bronchitis. He couldn't be around other kids for 5 days which meant that I couldn't rely on friends, Jared was starting mid-terms and I was desperate. I called my mom, and she came to the rescue. Luke fell in love with Mima. At times it was actually hard for me to watch. Since I was so incapacitated and spent almost all day in bed, Luke started to prefer Mima to me. In fact when my mom tried to give him to me to hold, he would cry and twist away. He stopped asking for me and to this day (almost a week after she left) Luke asks for Mima. But he's started coming to me again, and that makes me feel a little bit better. But my mom did more than take care of Luke. She did all the shopping and cleaning. Plus, she was my nurse. She brought me herbal tea in bed, food, ice, medicine, etc. She also entertained me by reading. (I didn't mention before that I have a difficult time reading because my head starts spinning and I start to feel really sick. For this reason and because I can't sit up for long periods of time, I haven't blogged and won't blog again for a while).
My mom ended up being Luke's nurse too. About two weeks after she arrived, his cough came back. Mom took him to the doctor where he was diagnosed with pneumonia, an ear infection, and an infection on his big toe as well. He was put on an antibiotic and told to come back in a week. The next week we were told that while his one lung was a little better, it had spread to the other. Luke was given a nebulizer and had to do breathing treatments 3 times a day.
He hated it.
I guess Jared was feeling left out of all the drama, and he had to do something to get his own share of attention. He had a biking accident the Saturday before my parents left and hurt his right ankle. It was swollen and extremely painful. We spent 4 hours in the ER on Sat. night/ Sun. morning where we found out basically nothing because his foot was too swollen to get a good x-ray, but he got a lame boot out of the bargain.
After a few days of hopping and crawling he is now able to put some pressure on his ankle, but it still hurts him a lot and keeps him from exercising. For all we know it's broken.And that's our drama. Next time I make it to the computer, I will blog about my dad's visit and our other adventures.
Thank you to everyone who is taking care of Luke this week. May God bless you for your service.