My kids have pneumonia, but It's been a good day

My girls are sick.

About a week ago, they came down with a cough. That's right, just a
cough... then it was the "horrible" cough that I wrote of in my last
blog post, and now here it is a week later and being the mom of the year
that I am, I finally got them to a doctor.

Turns out, they now have pneumonia.

Yeah, don't I feel like a winner. My kids have been sick for a whole
week - all the while contaminating the whole house with their germies
and getting the two very special very near-and-dear-to-my-heart daycare
kiddos sick in the process. So, four little people that I love very
much are sick. Very, very sick. And that really sucks!

And, might I mention? I'm a bit sicky too, now. It started with a common
problem that I have and then developed into a night of horror and now is
just a lingering issue. Thankfully enough, I happen to have a doctor's
appointment already scheduled for that on Friday.

But, did you hear me? My kids are sick! And it's bad! And that makes me
wanna cry.

But, instead of crying about it here and now, let me share with you a
story about my day...
While today wasn't exactly a good day, it wasn't horrible, either. I'm
a pessimist by nature, and often have a hard time staying positive about
anything besides kids and God. But, I decided today that I'm maturing
spiritually, and that is changing the way I live my life. Today was a
challenging day, indeed... definitely not a day that I care to repeat
anytime again. ever. But, a lot of good crossed my path today that
allowed me to see the sunshine through the clouds.

To begin, I followed my gut this morning and called Julia out of school
even before she woke up. She has not been acting really sick (other than
the nagging cough and the faucet for a nose) ... but something told me
that today was not a day for her to be in school. That, right there,
was God speaking to me.

Furthermore, I trusted my feeling that I should get the girls to their
pediatrician first thing this morning. One of the nice things about our
pediatrics office is that they have walk-in hours every morning for an
hour and a half.... and this morning - we were set to arrive right in
the middle of that window. That, was a blessing for sure.... no
calling to talk to the staff beforehand and no scheduling of
inconvenient appointments (why do pediatrics appointments always get
scheduled right during nap or meal times?). It was just get up, and
go... and off we went.

I hate to admit that the office staff where the girls' pediatrician is
can be hit-or-miss in the common courtesy department. So, I was a little
nervous going in, practicing what I was going to say .. I even made a
post it note of all the symptoms and dates/times of said symptoms before
we left... I was prepared for rolling-of-the-eyes, and I was expecting
to hear "Its just a virus, come back in 7-10 days if it doesnt get better."
But, I was so pleasantly surprised by the mood of the staffers there
this morning. The doctor that saw us, was so very sweet - I am going to
try and get her as our regular pediatrician. She was compassionate and
kind and ..... she even shed a tear with me as I sat in shock at the
fact that my girls came down with pneumonia. It should go without saying
that this was a huge blessing in our day.

We left with four different prescriptions. My strategy was to get them
filled at Target... I've been happy with their pharmacy in the past, and
it's a nice place to walk around and gawk at ThingsThatWeDontNeed while
waiting for the scripts to get filled. Unfortunately for us, today
happened to be the day when all the pharmacy techs called in sick and
left the pharmacy open with just one employee to hold down the fort.
She was very kind and happy - but told me that it would be about 30
minutes before she could get the order done.

So, we walked around for a while... those of you out there with kids
know what this is like... two sick kids, one mom, a shopping cart filled
with coats and a diaper bag, a purse, and a kid inthecart, outofthecart,
inthecart, outofthecart..... it was a long half hour, but one that
needed to pass. It would have been a /lot/ harder to drag the kids into
the store, drop off the script, drag the kids back out to the car, go
home, drag the kids into the house, kill some time, drag the kids back
out to the car, and then go back into the store to pick up the filled
prescriptions. Yeah, you know how it goes....

So after 40 minutes passed, I finally got the gumption to ask her if she
was close to being done yet, to which she replied, "uh, sorry - no ...
gonna need another 15-20 minutes."
This just about broke my heart. Good thing the lady was so nice and
apologetic. Seriously. I was about to go berserk! Instead, I just told
her sorry, that I couldn't wait anymore - at this point both my kids
were crying, and I was on the verge of tears as well... but she said
she would hurry hurry so I gave her the 15-20 minutes she asked for and
we walked on about the store once more.

Of course, as soon as I got to the other end of the store, I hear "Mrs.
_____ please return to the pharmacy." I probably rolled my eyes and I
might have even said (under my breath, I hope) "what now" as we turned
back to head over to the counter that we had just left. So here we
go... Julia's racing ahead (she senses the urgency I have at this point.
Either that, or she just has to much pent up anxiety and energy to hold
back any longer)... Mommy's pushing the cart filled with our coats,
etc., and I'm pulling Rebecca by... *wait for it*... the _back of her
shirt_. I'm such a good mom.

Upon our return to the pharmacy, I learned that I didn't even have the
right card I needed to get the scripts filled. Yes, it would have been
nice to have this information 45 minutes /earlier/ than this, but - what
could I do?
Frustration flooded my eyes. I'm sure my face was red.

I apologized to the lady who felt like she needed to share the story of
her day... about how her co-workers called in sick, about how she has so
many orders to fill, about how she feels terribly for me and wants to
help me.. I apologized to her up and down for coming unprepared (why
must there be a separate insurance card for prescriptions? Why can't my
health insurance card just cover scripts too? grrr...) I apologized for
being so sour, and told her that we could be in bad moods together,
having bad days together. And she hurried to fill the part of the order
that wouldn't cost us an arm-and-leg to fill without insurance, and I
agreed to pay for them out of pocket. She never stopped smiling and
thanked me for being patient (heh, if she only knew what I was thinking)...

Honestly, I just wanted to get the heck out of there. And I wanted to
leave with antibiotics. And that's all I wanted. And... by golly? That's
what I got. Fortunately, one of the antibiotics was only $4 there, and
the other was only $8 (twice the meds cuz Julia is twice as old as
Beccs) - so she filled the bottles quickly while I continued to pull
tricks out of my a.... ahem.. pocket to keep the kids under control. The
rest of the prescriptions that I would have liked to get filled were
ones that (by the grace of God) could wait. I didn't want to wait, but I
could. And I did. And it worked out.

Funny thing, too? Is that I found a target gift card in my wallet that I
didn't even know I had. And I used it to pay for the stupid $4
prescription, and so it was actually free, and all worked out well in
the end. Not to mention that the apologetic lady gave us the $8
prescription for free because she felt bad for us having to wait.

This long story still isn't over.

On the way home, it was close to lunch time, and I knew that it would be
good for the girls to have some roughage in their tummies when they take
their first dose of medicine, so I stopped at Sonic, which I thought
would make Julia quite happy.
Indeed, it did not.

As soon as I gave her the food choices, she power puked all over her
coat, her pants, the car, the car seats, and the target bag holding her
brand new prescription. So, forget Sonic - I backed outta there and
jetted for home in tears.

So hear me out - two kids with pneumonia. I myself with ...uh.. tummy
issues.. walk-in clinic, understaffed pharmacy, power-puking 4 year
old, and a whole house to sanitize before business hours tomorrow....
Did I have a bad day? Nahh.

It wasn't a bad day. I met a really cool pediatrician that I want to
hire for my own kids. I was able to comfort and cheer a pharmacist that
was at her wits end. I found the grace of God in my wallet (heh,
seriously! I had no idea that gift card was in there, or I would have
bought me a fun new somethingsomething with it a long time ago!!), and
my BFF was waiting for me in my computer when I got home so I was able
to unload on her and then smile about the good things in life. On top of
that, husby came home and played with the kiddos while I scrubbed every
single toy, wall, floor, ceiling tile, book, pillow, etc. in the playroom.

It wasn't a bad day.
Some really crummy things happened today. But, life goes on.
Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in really fast. It's no fun being
sick, but it's even worse when one of your kiddos is sick.

Alright, lets not get ahead of ourselves, Julia has since thrown up
twice again and now my throat and neck are starting to ache. Nah,
today's not such a bad day, but tonight might be different.... heh
...gotta keep that good ole pessimism close by!