It Could Happen to Anyone

...but it happened to us.

I'm just now coming up for air after last week. It started Saturday night when out of nowhere Annie spiked a fever. A high one. High enough that I wasted no time calling the after-hours number on a Saturday night. We spent the next 24 hours taking cool baths, downing Tylenol, and doing whatever we could to bring it down. She didn't really appear to have any other symptoms.

Then she stopped eating. I just figured she didn't feel well. She wasn't sleeping well (so none of us were sleeping well.) On Monday afternoon, I thought she was getting better, and I left her with a friend for the afternoon - the first time I left her with a sitter. That night, it just got worse.

I broke down on Tuesday and took her to the doctor (even though we'd had a Wednesday appointment scheduled for 6 weeks!) Turns out she has hand, foot and mouth disease. Yup...a highly contagious virus. One you can do NOTHING about...except pain medication. By this point, she wasn't eating at all. Not drinking. Not sleeping. In so much pain she couldn't even cry. It was heartbreaking.

We finally turned a corner on Thursday morning.

Ah! Thursday morning...the day I had been looking to since we got home from China. My "date" with Tanna...you know the one...cut, color, highlight, a little touch of wax on the eyebrows. "Me" time. I took Dayna along for the ride to get her bangs trimmed since we're getting family pictures this week.

So while FINALLY getting to relax a little and do something for me, we notice something wrong with Dayna. (I'll spare details.) I'm so glad I was with Tanna because she immediately talked me down from whatever place I found myself going. She kept things calm and helped me come up with a game plan.

You know...people ask where these problems came from, and I really don't want to know. It really could happen to anyone. It just happened that both occurred the same week to us. Dayna asked on the way home if we'd laugh about this someday. My answer was "probably not." But, with God's help, we were able to push through, and now we can look back and say that Philippians 4:13 is absolutely true. We can do ANYTHING through Christ who gives us strength. Whether that's walking the floor at 2am with an inconsolable child who is in too much pain to cry, or dealing with Dayna's dilemma. And Dayna and I have both seen that God did indeed work her situation for good. She hasn't had a lot of alone time with Mama since Annie joined our family. No matter how hard you try to make time, there seem to always be distractions. Well...this kind of forced us into several one-on-one times for extended periods as we worked together to solve her problem.

The good news is that now we're in the clear...on all counts. Just in time for a visit tomorrow from Dan's brother and his family. They may not come to an immaculate house, but we're so glad to see them! And I'll keep smiling and pushing on.