The Week We Gave to RSV {School + Too Much TV}

Saturday I noticed Evalynn had a bit of a nagging cough so we kept her home from church Sunday.  

{Watching Beauty and the Beast while the others were at church....she decided the beast was scary!}

We had her sleep in our room on the floor mattress Sunday night because something just wasn't sitting right with me.

The thing about her cough was that she didn't have a fever and no runny nose.  It was just this weird tight cough.  I took her to the chiropractor Monday just to make sure her system was running as good as possible and see if we could keep anything impending from settling in her ears.

Monday and Tuesday we toodled along fairly normally.  Lots of outdoor play.  School as scheduled.

Ameliya finished her Sing, Spell, Read, and Write curriculum!!  Congratulations, Mia!

Staying hydrated and resting.  She did eventually get a fever.

Natalee working on math.

By Tuesday evening I told Mike that I thought Ev should stay home from Xavier's soccer game.  

Painting toes and watching shows while everyone was at soccer.

I kept her back, and as the evening progressed her cough got tight and hard.  Not productive.  Mean sounding.  Grandma Num and Papa had come up for Xavier's soccer game and they could tell my dander was riled by that cough.

By Wednesday I was fully unhinged.  Ha.  Mike stayed home from work and I took Evalynn to the walk-in clinic.  Still no runny nose, but the fever and the cough.  They tested her for RSV, COVID, and strep and she was positive for RSV.  Five kids in and I've never dealt with this virus before.  I can't even fathom where she would have gotten it, honestly, not that it matters.  Her o2 was 90-93 at the clinic, but they checked her for retractions and she didn't have any so that was a positive.  Seeing the numbers on the little screen shook me up a bit.  I honestly wasn't sure they were going to let us leave.  Finally the clinician asked if I had a nebulizer and/or would need training on one and I told her we did have one, and the mask, but no treatments.  She put in the script and sent us straight home to do a treatment and told me to follow my "mom gut" and that we might yet need to come in through the ER.  (Next time I'll ask for more specific parameters.) Filling the albuterol script was a circus through our pharmacy (we are switching!), but soon enough we were home getting those treatments in.

The first 48 hours we gave her the albuterol every 4 hours - and by 3 1/2 hours you could tell her body was ready for help.  Her o2 would decrease and her cough would increase and she'd be so still.

Thankfully, her body responded really well to the treatments and she had several spurts of energy and play in between resting, too much TV, and drinking her water.

She even asked me for a "tivity" to do.

Mike took off again Thursday so I could have help with our daily activities for the other children and caring well for Evalynn.  Natalee and Ameliya had PT (N) and OT (A) on Thursday and Natalee had hippotherapy Thursday afternoon.  Xavier also had his last soccer game Thursday evening.  The clinician at the walk-in had assured me that unless the other children were symptomatic they were fine to continue their activities.  (I checked - wink.)

Later in the week, the others did start falling, though.  No one was nearly as sick as Evalynn, although Ameliya took second place.  Her little face was so miserable.  One by one, little Evie took down every single member of the Beeler clan.  

No fever?  Let's do a little school.  Ha.  

Actually no one else got a fever, thankfully.  We all just had "cold-like" symptoms and recovered just fine with fluids, rest, essential oils, and herbals.  Isn't it nice that we have the opportunity for natural healing when appropriate and modern medicine when needed?

Ev had bursts of energy after the breathing treatments.

We watched plenty of shows while we recovered.

Zayden's biggest disappointment was that we were hoping to get together with Theo on his day off school on Friday and we weren't able to do that.  I noticed he went to his room and put on the best buddy bracelet Theo made him.

Evalynn up in Zayden's face - can't imagine how the germs spread.

This was a long week but I'm trying harder to not see these out of schedule weeks as time wasted, but instead as time spent differently.  Spent slowly.  Gently.  More kind to one another.