I lived through a very wild week. If you are a long-time blog reader you know we are an “it takes a village” type of family. We all pitch in and help whenever we can.
Let me see if I can even remember what all happened…
It started out on Sunday the 17th. Craig is busy as fieldwork is starting to happen at the farm. Kalissa is busy as the hospital where she works as a nurse is short-staffed and overwhelmed with Covid patients. She is constantly getting messages begging for nurses to come in and work overtime.
That meant that on Sunday morning, Carver and Gannon needed an adult while Craig went out to do chores and Kalissa drove home from working an overnight shift. Grandma to the rescue! These are Gannon’s favorite toys at my house…
I ended up doing some tidying and prep work around the house as I knew the upcoming week was going to be crazy…I didn’t get any sewing in and typically either Saturday or Sunday I spend at least half of the day sewing.
Kayla called me and she wasn’t feeling good. She was going to make a doctor’s appointment for the next day after school.
Monday was crazy. It was a no-school day. I was up earlier than usual with no morning sewing time.
I started out expecting six kids and that all grew. Carver ended up being here. Gannon couldn’t come as he was home sick with a temp. The cousin of one of the groups of kids didn’t have an adult for the day so I became her adult too. Then the girls that live across the road’s regular childcare provider was sick so they came over here. Then Kelli called and she misses seeing the childcare kiddos so she brought her whole crew over.
Rosie got to play with one of the neighbor girls and… was crowned queen.
It was a wild day with so many kids here but Kelli helped and even watched all the kids herself for 20 minutes while I did a bank errand and went to the post office.
I had no naptime and no evening time to do any blog work or quilting.
Kayla ended up getting back to me. The doctor swabbed her for Covid. She couldn’t go to work until her test came back.
My own kids ended up at our house for big family supper. Thankfully I had made the food in advance the night before. They all stayed late and we played the board game we all love, Ticket to Ride.
As Kelli was starting to leave that night, something wasn’t right with Eli. He had a terrible cough and wasn’t doing well. I worried about him.
Tuesday rolled around. I was up earlier than usual with no morning sewing time. The neighbor girl’s childcare provider was still sick.
My regular guy who comes to childcare stayed home sick. He ended up at the doctor and had RSV and a bronchitis type issue. I worried about him.
That evening I walked with my friend. We haven’t gotten back in a routine to walk so I wanted to do everything I could to make that happen. On the walk, I learned that a close friend of our family’s Dad died.
Somewhere about here, Craig started getting a terrible toothache.
I tried hard to catch up on blog posts that evening. I finally quit doing stuff at 9:45 pm and let myself cross stitch until 10:30. I should have gone to bed earlier. Then when I did get to bed I couldn’t sleep. That never happens to me.
Wednesday I did get up and was able to sew. YAHOO!! Wednesdays I have extra kids as there is no preschool…but being my one little guy was gone with RSV, it was less of a crew. Carver and Gannon and Kalissa came over and the kids all played. Kalissa sat with her laptop at the table and together we designed a new T-shirt I think you all are going to LOVE. I sure do love and can’t wait to get one!!
Kelli ended up taking Eli to the doctor as he still wasn’t sleeping the best. Still had the cough and was still fussy. The doctor said he had RSV, just like my other childcare guy. UGH.
Still no covid results from Kayla.
Kalissa watched the kids and I ran to the post office. Oh, my word. On top of it being a busy week, it was also a busy mail week. I sent out over $300 in packages. On Wednesday when I took the packages, as long as I was at the post office anyway, the mail lady sent me home with two packages that she was going to later deliver to my house.
Wednesday night Karl stopped over and was going to mow lawn. He ended up staying and chatting with me until it was too dark to mow. Then all of my kids called me and checked up on me to see how I felt about my pending doctor appointments the next day.
I loaded stuff to take to Julie in Spring Valley into the van so that would be ready for the next day.
Then Kalissa called at about 8 pm. She needed to take Craig to the doctor. His tooth was acting up. Craig was in terrible pain. Could I watch the boys? Sure. I had the boys until 10:15 that night. Craig got pain meds.
The next day was Thursday. That was for my doctor’s appointments. I picked Kalissa up at 5 am. It was a short overnight of sleep for me…even shorter for Kalissa. Craig was okay with the pain if he was standing…as soon as he laid down, he was in pain all over again. He kept Kalissa and himself up.
While Kalissa and I drove towards Rochester to Mayo Clinic, Craig got the boys up, took them to his Grandma’s, and then took himself to the dentist. Craig was sure he needed a root canal. The dentist said no and didn’t really know what the pain was from. Craig went back to his Grandma’s house, picked up Carver, and took him to school. Gannon stayed with Grandma. Craig spent the day in pain.
Meanwhile, at Mayo Clinic, I started with a 7 am blood test. Had chest, abdominal, and pelvis CT scans. Then we waited for my appointment with the doctor.
I stitched and Kalissa worked on the laptop designing another T-shirt. I think you all will love this one too. I sure do!!
I saw my doctor…Kalissa finally got to meet her. Kalissa likes her too. For the most part, everything sounded really good. We were comfortable with what happened. Of course, there was a little glitch. My blood work wasn’t back yet. UGH.
Kayla’s Covid test came back, she was okay.
While I was at the doctor another one of my childcare guys was at the doctor too. He was getting tubes in his ears. We periodically messaged to see how he was doing. All was sounding good.
We headed towards home after we ate out. I didn’t know about eating in a restaurant. We drove by our favorite one and there were no cars in the lot as it was 2:30 in the afternoon. We were the only ones in the restaurant until about halfway through our meal and then one lady came in. I was okay with that.
Kalissa called Craig. He was still in pain. She ended up making an appointment with the Endodontist for the next morning. They had to be there at 7:30 so that meant me up early again and the boys coming to my house at 6:15 in the morning the next day.
We picked up Gannon from Craig’s Grandma and headed home but then realized we didn’t pick up pain meds for Craig. UGH. We made it in the nick of time.
We got into town and had to go pick up Carver as he was riding in the chopper with Craig.
Finally, at about 6:30 or so…I made it home. Look what I found on my porch.
Blog readers had by and made a donation to the charity quilt group. WOW!! I carried all of that in and started sorting it as I was expecting someone to be picking up stuff the next day and if there was stuff in here that would be good for them, I wanted to have it already sorted.
I checked to see if my bloodwork numbers were in…nope. After that, I had to write two blogs post and made it to bed late again.
Friday I was up early with the boys so Kalissa could take Craig to the Endodontist. When Kalissa dropped them off, she said she didn’t think I was going to have my little guy who got tubes because in the night Kalissa had got a message from the mom (they are friends) and the little guy wasn’t doing well. Oh NO!!
So I just had Gannon as the RSV boy was still out…and my tubes boy was in the ER. Oh, how miserable.
I happened to check my bloodwork numbers and oh no…they did not look good. I messaged the kids and told them the numbers weren’t good and that I wouldn’t be surprised if my doctor called me to discuss it.
Kalissa came back with Craig to get Gannon. She was so frustrated. They told Craig they would do a root canal the following Friday. Craig was in so much pain he was almost puking on the way to the appointment. He ended up going back out to work. Everyone was frustrated about this.
Kalissa took Gannon home as she had to try to sleep as she hadn’t been and was working overnight that night. Plus she hadn’t slept well the previous two nights due to Craig’s tooth.
Kelli called me and we chatted. I asked her how Eli was and she said she thought a little better. We hung up and a few minutes later she called me back on video messenger and showed me Eli’s ear.
Well, that is a tell-tale sign of an ear infection that didn’t get caught. I told her to hang up and quickly call to see if she could get him to the doctor yet that afternoon. By now, it’s Friday early afternoon, and getting an appointment is virtually impossible. She had to work overnight and there was no way she was leaving Jason with him without some medicine. Worst case she would take him to urgent care on his way to work.
At this point, no kids were here.
At 2 pm, the ladies came to sort and pick what they wanted from the community quilt mail donations that were here. They stayed for about an hour and took home the back of a vehicle of goodies.
I started cleaning and resorted what we had gone through. I contacted another group and made arrangements for them to come in the near future.
Then about 3:55 pm, I got a call from the Mayo Clinic business office. They were coordinating with my insurance about my upcoming appointments. WHAT? I don’t have any upcoming appointments. The lady assured me I did. One at the beginning of October. One at the end. WHAT?! When I left the doctor’s office I was told that she would see me in 4 months.
It’s now 4 pm on Friday. I called Kalissa to double-check to make sure she heard what I heard at the doctor’s office. 4 months from now appointments right? She said yes. She told me to quickly email my doctor and I did. By now I was mad and frustrated.
I had no call from my doctor. I had no reason to know what these appointments were for. Sure I knew my blood work numbers were higher than expected…but all of this for that with no phone call??!!
Kelli called me in the middle of all of that. Eli does have an ear infection. He also had some bronchitis-type stuff going on so got amoxicillin and steriods.
In the middle of that phone call, Kalissa called me. I ignored the call then she messaged me and asked if I wanted her to call Mayo Clinic and see what’s up. I said yes as just at the moment, the bus pulled up to drop off the childcare kids from school.
I was so frustrated but there was nothing to do except put on a happy face and greet them.
Kalissa called me back a bit later. She called and talked to the schedulers, schedulers boss. Apparently, I am getting a PET scan at the end of October. The early October appointment was a mistake. My doctor ordered it. No one talked to me about it. UGH.
As the childcare kids were leaving, my friend pulled up to walk. I said nothing to my friend. I was afraid at that point that I would lose it.
I got home. I checked my appointments on the computer. The early October appointment was gone. The other appointment listed was with my doctor. No PET scan was scheduled…just the follow-up appointment with my doctor. Hmm. Then I noticed the time for the appointment… 9:45 am. Well, that isn’t enough time for a PET scan to happen and the results to be back. I’m so confused by it all and frankly frustrated.
I ended up writing two blog posts and started getting the house ready for the next even. Buck and the kids were coming in the morning. I made cookies and tried to clean the house up a bit. I finally quit doing stuff at 9:45 pm and let myself cross stitch until 11:30.
I slept in on Saturday morning. For me, that’s 7:15 am. I ran around the house doing stuff and got a call from Craig at 9:30 am. He was driving himself to the ER. That tooth still wasn’t right and he was still in terrible pain. He hadn’t slept and was at work but just couldn’t do it anymore. He wanted me to know in case the doctors drugged him up and he couldn’t drive. Could I come to get him if that happened? Kalissa was sleeping at the hotel in Mason City and had just worked the overnight shift. I of course said yes.
Then I called Buck. He wasn’t planning to be at my house until 11 am. I quickly jumped into my van and drove to my favorite junk sale. I went to the sale…I’ll tell you more about that in another post…then on the way home, Craig called me. They were sending him back to the Endodontist. It was in the opposite direction. Craig wanted someone to drive him. I said someone would.
Oh my.
I got home. Buck and the kids had just pulled in.
Craig pulled in a half an hour later and I drove him to Waterloo. While he was having the procedure, I got groceries and then cross-stitched the rest of the time.
I ended up gone about 4 hours…
That’s where I’ll leave the story. I’ll write a separate post about the sale and the rest of the weekend with Buck’s kids.
What you should have gleaned from this post
-My two childcare kiddos are now doing okay. They still aren’t 100% but good enough to come to childcare.
-Eli is responding well to the meds and he’s okay to come to childcare too.
-Kayla did not have Covid.
-Craig was immediately pain-free after the root canal. He’s normal now.
-Kalissa and I both are a little tired as we still haven’t caught up on missed sleep.
-My doctor appointments should get worked out soon. In the meantime, I’m just going to live life.
What a week! I sure hope this one slows down. I know it was crazy but I am so thankful to be part of the village of a family that we are. I wouldn’t want to go through this life with anyone else except my family.