Life in the last 48 hours:
Friday afternoon around 2pm - Violet woke up from her nap and was her normal, rambunctious self and was trying to see what I was doing in the kitchen, but I put my hand up to shoo her away because I was making ramen on the stove. She took this as a major affront and started stamping her feet and threw a massive fit. I finally get a chance to pick her up and I can feel that she is warmer than usual. It took me about 20 minutes to figure out a way to calm her down and take her temperature. When I finally did, it read 102.-something. I call Scott to get his advice on if I should go to Urgent Care, but he suggested just a bath first and then see how things are when he gets home. We do this and the temp still reads 102-something. The funny thing is, other than the tantrum, she's fine. Eating, drinking, playing and was probably more of a cuddle-monkey, but fine. We give her food, Tylenol, Curious George watching, a story and set her down for bedtime. She woke up twice, but finally settled at around 10pm and slept the night.
Saturday morning: she woke up chipper, completely fine, and no trace of a fever. The trick I finally learned to get her to let me take her temperature was to have her hum with me while the numbers went up. Temperature was back to normal, and her appetite never really changed. She wanted to have pancakes, so we had pancakes: purple ones with white chocolate chips. Morning play followed by normal nap.
Saturday afternoon: after her nap, I cooked up some pasta and gave her a little bit of tomato sauce, which is rare. She ate fine, played and had one very messy diaper. It wasn't until about 4:30 when we were getting ready to head out that I noticed a rash around her mouth. She had a rash on her chin, but I had figured that it was from the taggie blanket she constantly sucks on while she sleeps. While we were at the block party, we saw the rash on her arms, legs, back and shoulders and one bump on her lip and a (mosquito?) bite on her leg. With the trip coming so soon, we didn't want to mess around, so we went to Urgent Care. They took her vitals, checked out her mouth and said, yeah, it could be an allergic reaction to the tomato (she's had that before, but only around her mouth, probably because of the acid just settling on her face and us not wiping it off quickly) and not Hand Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD), which has been going around on base. We go home, have dinner, read, watch more George and off to bed, this time with no fussiness.
Sunday: rash is still there, no fever since Friday, still energetic, playful and hungry. We go about our day just fine until around 4pm after eating watermelon. I noticed more bumps on her lips and now, a white bump on her tongue. Back to UC, same caregiver, and now a confirmation that it is HFMD. Nothing too bad, nothing alarming since she was hamming it up for him and displayed she was fine and playful, but still, that's what Violet has.
I don't blame the dude on changing his mind since Violet looked like she was just having a mild reaction. But now, I'm a little scared about how this will play out while we are away. I do, however, have the comfort in knowing that since we're going to be at Tripler Army Hospital anyway, we won't be far from doctors that can take a look at her.
MOMMY NOTE: So, apparently you are not supposed to give the child anything acidic while she has HFMD, like tomato or orange juice. I did both within the same day. Whoops.
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Thursday, August 29, 2013
I'm a traveling man, Made a lot of stops all over the world
This is the first moment I've been able to sit and take stock of what has happened in the last week. Actually, what has happened in the last year, because that's how far I'm taking this flashback.
End of September 2012, I arrived in New York City to hang out with some friends for a few days, go to another friend's wedding, travel from Northern NJ down to Baltimore and catch a flight to Greenland so that I could visit with Scott for a week. But, instead of all of that, I found out on the day that I landed in NYC that Scott had broken his ankle and was going to be transported to an army hospital in Virginia. He and I spent the majority of October in a hotel in Fort Belvoir, having him go through two separate surgeries. We were still able to have fun and I was even lucky enough to catch a post season MLB game at the Washington Nationals stadium, thus crossing that off my "list of stadiums to go to." Not too shabby.
Montage time: Scott finishes his time in Greenland, we pack up our home in Colorado, have a loooong awaited reception for our wedding, move to Japan, live in Yokota for 4 months.
In all that time, Scott was still limping. He finally gets a doctor here at Yokota to look at it and then flew down to Hawaii for a further assessment, came back and told me he needed to get another surgery because a) the bones never healed properly and they are fusing incorrectly and b) a screw that was placed in his ankle has broken. Keep in mind: Scott had previously broken THE SAME ANKLE back in August 2009.
Conclusion: his surgery must take place in Hawaii again, he is required to have a chaperone to travel and stay with him. Sounds fantastic, right? We'll get back to this, because in the meanwhile....
One of our mutual and close friends gets engaged and was to be married 6 months after the engagement. Scott and I made the decision to send me to represent the Fourres and have Scott and Violet stay behind. I went, I cried, I partied, I laughed. I was also a walking zombie because of the jet lag and time difference, but I was able to cowboy up for a good time.
I then flew back and only after one good night's sleep, I tried to tackle the possibility of Scott having to leave for Hawaii a day before Violet and me. Looking down the barrel of an 8 hour flight and being the only one to wrangle a very active 2 year old was a little bit too much for me to wrap my head around. Especially considering we had less than a week to nail down the details and were coming up against a 4 day weekend (stupid Labor Day....)
In order to nail down said details, we needed Scott to receive his orders. In order to do that, I had to fill out some paperwork, though it took me three trips to the hospital offices to do this. Time check? Wednesday the 28th and Scott is (semi-)scheduled to leave on Monday the 2nd for a surgery on Wednesday the 4th. On Thursday, it took some major wandering (and LOTS of patience), only to have to wait a bit more for Scott to finally leave work early to sort out Violet's plane ticket.
The final outcome to this story is that we finally got our flights, our hotel and Scott's surgery all arranged by 3pm Thursday, cutting this really close to the 3:30pm end of office hours and a Friday and Monday closure of these offices.
Yes, it turned out alright in the end. But I am not an adrenaline junkie who needs the rush of success at the last minute. I'd much rather not go greyer than I have to and have a few more years on my life.
End of September 2012, I arrived in New York City to hang out with some friends for a few days, go to another friend's wedding, travel from Northern NJ down to Baltimore and catch a flight to Greenland so that I could visit with Scott for a week. But, instead of all of that, I found out on the day that I landed in NYC that Scott had broken his ankle and was going to be transported to an army hospital in Virginia. He and I spent the majority of October in a hotel in Fort Belvoir, having him go through two separate surgeries. We were still able to have fun and I was even lucky enough to catch a post season MLB game at the Washington Nationals stadium, thus crossing that off my "list of stadiums to go to." Not too shabby.
Montage time: Scott finishes his time in Greenland, we pack up our home in Colorado, have a loooong awaited reception for our wedding, move to Japan, live in Yokota for 4 months.
In all that time, Scott was still limping. He finally gets a doctor here at Yokota to look at it and then flew down to Hawaii for a further assessment, came back and told me he needed to get another surgery because a) the bones never healed properly and they are fusing incorrectly and b) a screw that was placed in his ankle has broken. Keep in mind: Scott had previously broken THE SAME ANKLE back in August 2009.
Conclusion: his surgery must take place in Hawaii again, he is required to have a chaperone to travel and stay with him. Sounds fantastic, right? We'll get back to this, because in the meanwhile....
One of our mutual and close friends gets engaged and was to be married 6 months after the engagement. Scott and I made the decision to send me to represent the Fourres and have Scott and Violet stay behind. I went, I cried, I partied, I laughed. I was also a walking zombie because of the jet lag and time difference, but I was able to cowboy up for a good time.
I then flew back and only after one good night's sleep, I tried to tackle the possibility of Scott having to leave for Hawaii a day before Violet and me. Looking down the barrel of an 8 hour flight and being the only one to wrangle a very active 2 year old was a little bit too much for me to wrap my head around. Especially considering we had less than a week to nail down the details and were coming up against a 4 day weekend (stupid Labor Day....)
In order to nail down said details, we needed Scott to receive his orders. In order to do that, I had to fill out some paperwork, though it took me three trips to the hospital offices to do this. Time check? Wednesday the 28th and Scott is (semi-)scheduled to leave on Monday the 2nd for a surgery on Wednesday the 4th. On Thursday, it took some major wandering (and LOTS of patience), only to have to wait a bit more for Scott to finally leave work early to sort out Violet's plane ticket.
The final outcome to this story is that we finally got our flights, our hotel and Scott's surgery all arranged by 3pm Thursday, cutting this really close to the 3:30pm end of office hours and a Friday and Monday closure of these offices.
Yes, it turned out alright in the end. But I am not an adrenaline junkie who needs the rush of success at the last minute. I'd much rather not go greyer than I have to and have a few more years on my life.
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