If Snot was Fuel, We'd be in Great Shape!

We have been sick. It all started last Saturday with Aven having an icky, juicy cough. I immediately called her pediatrician and we chatted for a while and I made an appointment to come in on Monday. Monday rolled around, we went to the doc, and he diagnosed Aven with bronchitis. I have been at home with my baby-o all week. Monday was a pretty rough day. Aven felt so so horrible, and all day long she hung out in my arms with her head on my shoulder, moaning. I have felt a lot of emotion in my life, but nothing comes close to the feeling in my heart when my baby is moaning and staring at me with her fever bright eyes and little pinched face, wanting me to make it all go away. She also would not nurse on Monday because of how bad she felt. This was a wake up call for me and added to the emotional challenge. I was wondering if she was on a nursing strike, but turns out she just felt like crap.

Aven started on some medicine on Monday that had a three day duration. Wednesday came and she was not doing any better and I was getting more worried than before. Aven went back to the doc on Thursday, he told us we needed to take her to the emergency room immediately, and off we went. On Thursday morning Aven coughed for and hour straight. All that coughing was interspersed with crying and a whole bunch of snot. It was epic. Every time she would cough it would make her so upset she would cry, which would produce a ton of snot. She would proceed to rub her face, rubbing the snot everywhere and I would come in and try and clean it up just so her eyelids and nostrils didn't get snot-glued shut. This would make her even more mad and she would start coughing, just to start the cycle all over again. Sadness.

At the emergency room Aven started to calm down. She actually really surprised me and instead of being totally scared and clingy, she was more curious and attentive. That is until they took her rectal temperature. I was holding her and I felt her whole body go rigid when the thermometer went in. Michael said her facial expression was priceless and sad at the same time. I could feel her shaking and what took 30 seconds, felt like 5 minutes. They pulled it out just in time because I could tell Aven was about to do "The Banana." The Banana is Aven's way of telling us she's pissed off with her body. She is a very fiery little girl with an opinion, and when she gets mad, especially these days, she like to throws her head back, arching her back with her arms out to her sides and legs flexed. I have gotten really good at catching her mid-throw, with just a couple misses here and there. When I miss, The Banana becomes The Banana Split. You would think I was pulling her toenails off. As funny as this sounds, it is actually quite sad and traumatic for me. I don't want Aven to be feeling that way. A lot of the time I can distract her pretty quickly with making duck or fart noises.

I remember when Aven was 1 month old, Michael was changing her diaper in the middle of the night and Aven was not pleased. He came into the doorway of the bedroom and said, "Check this out honey!" I looked up in the midst of Aven throwing a fit, and she was doing an Inverted Banana (or "The Flying Aven").  Michael was holding her over his left shoulder (this was before she had head control), and she had arched her back so hard that her feet and torso were almost perpendicular to the ground. Even though she was crying, I started to crack up because it's just not a sight I could ever have imagined seeing.

Aven seems to find comfort in being upside down. Even when she is happy she will throw her head back in delight and squeak and squeal. One evening I came downstairs and Michael was swinging her side to side and upside down by one leg. I think my jaw hit the ground, and then I heard her squeals of delight. This makes me think that my boss at gymnastics is going to have a hay-day with her when she's old enough. Just like her mommy: cant stay on the ground, always wanting to climb and flip.

So anyways, enough of that tangent. The emergency room visit turned out o.k. Getting chest x-rays was a bit rough, and all her tests came back negative, which was a major relief. We went back to her pediatrician today and he is convinced that she has RSV, which I am convinced of too. He said that a number of times this season, patients he has sent to the E.R. have been tested negative for RSV only to go back a few days later and come up positive. Unfortunately RSV is a virus, so there is no antibiotic for it and Aven just has to cough it out. She is no longer contagious, and she's fought the virus off, but the lingering effects are that a lot of lung tissue has been shed, and coughing is how infants deal with working that tissue out of their system. For more into on this, Google it.  I also have a cold with lots of snot that I got from my precious and innocent little petri dish of a baby. Come Monday we will be back in the swing of things and not bored out of our minds in the house. I have gotten so fed up with being here that cleaning is not even desirable anymore. The first few days I kept things pretty tidy and was motivated, but I had a pretty sick day in there myself, and now I'm just over it. Luckily, we finally replaced our dishwasher, so doing the dishes just became a whole lot easier again! (Geez, when did I become so domestic? Oh yeah, when I had a kid.)

Well, that's a wrap for now. Sorry for the lengthy-ness, that's just how I roll. No pics of sick babies and mommies for this one. Aven is not fully recovered, but she is eating well again and chirping. Until next time...