Agitated Rambling

I really wish that I could make most of my posts fit the title of this blog, but unfortunately, most of what I write here is neither serene, nor lighthearted enough to be considered a "musing." Thus, I've named this post "Agitated Rambling," because that's what it's going to be.

Sydney’s been sick for two weeks. It started as a really croupy cough with a fever. We took her to the doctor and they said she was "in distress" and gave her a breathing treatment in the office. We had just expected it to be a cold or something. We had to buy a nebulizer and give her breathing treatments every three or four hours. They said the respiratory issue was viral, not bacterial, so they didn’t give her any antibiotics. She seemed to be getting better after about 5 days, but then she relapsed and we ended up taking her to the emergency room on a Sunday night, fearing she had developed pneumonia. Turns out she didn’t have pneumonia, but she had developed an ear infection. They gave her amoxicillin, which we all know is an utterly useless antibiotic. By the following Friday, she was running a high fever again and coughing a lot again. We came home early from Thanksgiving and took her to the doctor again. This time, they gave her a stronger antibiotic. The next day (yesterday...Sunday), she had three bowel movements that all had blood in them. So we had to take her off of it. However, today, the nurse at the doctor’s office told us to keep her on it, but make sure she has plenty of food with it.

So today is day 13 of this illness. She hasn’t slept very well at all, she has been crying a lot (which she doesn’t normally do), and Melanie and I are really at our wit’s end. It’s very hard having a child sick for this long. Hailey, of course, was sick all the time when she was an infant too...she had an ear infection for almost 2 solid months. But Melanie wasn’t working at that time. Now, we’re both working, so sleep is important for both of us.

Then there’s the normal money issues...blah blah blah blah blah. It’s like throwing a person who can’t swim into the deep end of the pool. We’re just dog paddling like crazy, sinking, gulping down water, then surfacing momentarily and coughing the water up, gasping, and then sinking again, trying like hell to reach the side of the pool, but unable to get there because every time we make some forward progress, someone splashes up a big wave that pushes us back toward the middle.

The check engine light came on in my car last week, and we had to spend 100 dollars for the dealer to tell us what the problem was. We didn’t get the work done, because it cost too much money, but we still had to spend the 100-dollar diagnostic fee. The very next day after my check engine light came on, I noticed Melanie’s brakes grinding. So we had to spend 146 dollars getting her brakes fixed. THEN, this morning, her CAR WOULDN’T START. I had to get out of the shower, and fortunately when I went out there, I was able to get it to start by letting the engine turn and turn and turn. Don’t know why that happened, but it seems fine now. Sheesh. How many more things can go wrong?

I know, I know. Cry me a river and play the violin. I could be starving and homeless in Angola.