I know that sounds weird, but it's true. Anna was still on fever reducers almost 24 hours a day on Wednesday. Thursday afternoon her fever spiked. Thursday night it spiked again as soon as the Tylenol wore off.
But Friday she never had a fever. And ... we were able to stop her hydrocortisone cold turkey, instead of having to taper things off this time. That's a pretty awesome milestone in our family.
Looking back, Kate probably had worse symptoms than Anna. Kate's fever was combined with some major congestion and then a bit of a cough towards the end of the week. Anna didn't have any of that. She complained a little about a sore throat and once or twice about her ear hurting, but that's it. We'll take it.
After a year and a half or so of learning how to deal with Anna's illnesses, I think we finally reached a plateau in our learning curve. We have figured out how to deal with stress dosing appropriately and how to adjust her fluids, formula, and purees to help her through viruses. This kid's immune system has been back to normal for a long time, it just took us awhile to learn how to best help the rest of her body through sicknesses.
Before I get cocky, though, I'm sure that there is plenty more we could learn. However, for this particular virus, I think we all did a pretty decent job.
It also helped that since Kate was sick first, we pretty much knew what to expect. Many times we don't know the whole course of an illness when the first symptoms arise.
For Ethan and I, the week was much easier for a few reasons. First, the weather was beautiful. Being able to go outside made a huge difference in our outlook of being "trapped" at home.
(This year I convinced Ethan that he could swing in Anna's swing if he wanted a supported one. This way we don't have to constantly rearrange the swings on the swingset anymore. Although Ethan can swing in "big kid" swings, but he still likes to go high in supported ones :)
Second, Anna and I have plenty of practice doing days like this. Anna's teachers were great about passing along work, assignments, ideas and concepts covered, etc. Anna knows how hard it is to catch up on school work when she's been out, so she's willing to put forth the effort to do the work and learn the concepts before getting back into the school routine.
Besides those activities, Anna chose to do a handful of crafts. She doesn't often have the time for this these days.
And on Friday afternoon when she was a bundle of energy, she joined us outside.
Ethan and Anna now have to take turns in the blue swing, but they were both pretty good about it on Friday and Saturday. This weekend was the first time Anna was able to swing this year and she still loves it.
It's bittersweet to remember Anna's first summer in this swing; she didn't like moving much at all in it. Even when she got more comfortable with a slight swinging motion, she couldn't even raise her feet up to kick my hand, let alone pump. Now she just needs a boost to get started, and she will swing as high as she wants under her own power.
Time for Prayers
Thanksgiving
Please give thanks that Kate and Anna are both over this nasty fever.
Please thank God that only one person at a time has been sick in our house with this virus.
Please give thanks that, so far, Matt, Ethan, and I have not gotten sick.
Please thank God for the wonderfully flexible teaching staff both girls have working with them this year.
Please thank God for fever reducing medicines.
Please give thanks for spring, or at least spring-like weather.
Requests
Please ask God to grant Matt, Ethan, and I continued health.
Please pray for our continued ability to find joy each day.
Please ask God to continue to grant us wisdom as we live our lives each day.
Please continue to pray for all of those working with Anna, that they help Anna continue to make progress with all of her skills.
Thanks, as always.
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