Our Sickly January

Uggh, we're glad January is over. We were all sick!! Every last one of us!! First Justus caught a cold in his eyes; I learned it's the common cold/flu bacteria/viruses that cause pink eye! Mmmmmmmiserable, poor buddy. We treated it naturally, since I read that approx. 90% of pink eye infections are viral, 5% are environmental/allergy-related, and a mere 5% are bacterial, to be treated by antibiotics. PLUS, even if it is bacterial, antibiotics decrease the time of the infection by maybe only a day compared to letting the body fight it, though they might make the person not contagious as soon as 24 hrs. after antibiotics are started ... IF they're started in the first 24 hrs. of the infection! Argh! So, what with the nasty side effects of antibiotics (namely: YEAST), we decided to skip the expense and inconvenience of a doctor visit + medicine. It was a learning experience, and I will do some things differently next time, but it was a success anyway! I took this picture the first evening before the symptoms showed up in the other eye as well.




Here are two pictures of Justus's favorite pink-eye treatment: chamomile tea bags. He said they helped a lot to reduce the itching, dryness, and discomfort of it. Next time, if there should be a next time, we will do this 3-4x/day. We put a clean, dry wash cloth over the tea bags to catch excess drips.






So then two days after Justus came down with Pink Eye, a zit seemed to be coming, on Jeremy's forehead, from way back deep in there. Hoping it wouldn't get too 'bright' 'til after Sunday's services, he left it alone. However, by Sunday evening medical professionals in the congregation were becoming concerned, and convinced Jeremy to go to Urgent Care, so I went with him and Elaine took the children home. Justus was extremely uncomfortable with Jeremy having to go to the doctor. True, it was the end of a long, hard day.... These are the notes he left, taped to his bedroom door (right across the hall from Jeremy's and my bedroom door).





Sunday evening at the doctor's office the doctor diagnosed it as a spider bite that was infected, so started Jeremy on an antibiotic. This is what it looked like that night.





By Monday the fluid had started to drain down by his eyes.



Monday afternoon.



Monday evening.



So, Tuesday morning it looked even worse and Jeremy decided to go back to the Urgent Care clinic. He and I were there almost all day. (Thanks to Elaine for staying here with the children!) The doctor alllllmost admitted him to the hospital that evening but ended up simply prescribing a new antibiotic and then letting him go home to sleep in his own bed, with the promise that he'd be back in at 10am the next morning for the doctor to reevaluate.

Tuesday night.





Tuesday night there was a bad ice storm, but we had to go out the next morning, doctor's orders! It was rrrrreally beautiful; my favorite part was walking in the silence, listening to the chorus of ice cracking in the trees. It is the most non-musical 'music' I've ever heard. The doctor did decide Jeremy needed to be admitted for IV antibiotics. A surgeon was also called, and he sliced the red spot open and pushed, forced, and otherwise manipulated out of Jeremy's head as much as would come out. I was, of course, at home during the procedure, but church friends who were there visiting Jeremy said that when they were allowed back into the room just 20 minutes afterward there was already a noticeable difference. That evening I took the children to go see him; this was extreeeeeemely important to both children, needless to say, after so many days of being ill-at-ease about the situation.






The ice that night was still very thick on everything.








THANKFULLY they let Jeremy go home the next morning. Unfortunately the doctors said we will probably never know what it was that caused this event. The paperwork we brought home said, "You have been diagnosed with: abscess." He was ssssssuper hungry, and the hospital had only decaf coffee(!) so on the way home we got him a coffee and a burger; then he was a happy camper!



Here is what Jeremy's head looked like the day after his hospital stay.





I wasn't terribly surprised when Natasha and I came down sick the weekend after all that excitement. We missed quite a bit of sleep, and obviously there was quite a bit of stress!!!!! Uggh, and it was a BAD BUG; it took almost two weeks to kick it completely, and all five people in this house ended up with symptoms. BLECH, being sick is the pits.

It was during that same time span that Natasha and Justus made about thirty paper airplanes over the span of 2-3 days, all sizes & shapes. Then on Sunday afternoon Natasha made a 'city' out of odds-and-ends from around the house for the airplanes to fly over.



After reading in health food publications how healthful sprouts are (buy only certified organic seeds to avoid possible salmonella poisoning from cross-contamination, I bought this sprouter online. It allows us to sprout different kinds of seeds at the same time and/or always have fresh sprouts because we can start another tray of seeds just a few days after the previous tray and always have fresh sprouts! :) SO YUMMY. Justus isn't a fan yet, but Natasha and I like them on almost everything!! lol I took these pictures while it was 'doing its thing'. See, sprouts have to be 'watered' 2-3x/day, and they can't have too much water with them, nor too little, so it's a bit of a tricky process. To use this contraption you put the water in the top, and it drains down through each level (you can use only one tray, or two, or three), pooling in the bottom, away from the sprouts. Ridges on the bottom of each tray keep just the right amount of water in with the sprouts. So. :)