Unexpected Vacation

So, it's Friday. And I have not been at work all week. Where have I been you may ask? Well, I have been living it up in the confines of our home. Not quite a 'staycation' that seems to be all the rage the days, but I stayed home. and used the remainder of my vacation days. so I guess it's close enough.

Here's how our week went down.

Over the weekend, Caris succumbs to her first real illness. Fever, cough, pain, the works. I make the decision to keep her home Monday and Tuesday and go ahead and let my boss know that I won't be in. After visiting the doctor, she recommends I keep her home another day. So now I'm off through Wednesday. Thursday morning, I gear up a recovering Caris and convince myself to go back to work and drop Caris off at school. I pull up to her school. no one is there. I have no clue what's going on, so I call the main office and turns out, it's Fall Break. I was completely unaware that - a) there was such a thing and that - b) it was currently occurring. So now I'm faced with the reality that I just stayed home for 3 days and now Caris' school is closed and I have no other option but to stay home 2 more days. I traipse into my boss' office with baby in tow Thursday morning to plead my case and luckily (?) I still have a job to go back to on Monday.

In the meantime, Garrett is getting sicker by the minute. He has been un-well for a few weeks but it finally catches up to him. And he's still working 12+ hour days and on call. He is finally able to get a little bit of time off to go to the doctor and is told he has pneumonia and is ordered to stay out of the hospital for a few days. So now I have two sickies on my hands.

It's full nurse mode.

We've been combatting the symptoms with all the standard remedies. Humidifier put to use. Nasal aspirator within arms reach for constant use. Chicken noodle soup made. Monitoring temperatures. Steam showers. Warm baths. Tylenol. Tylenol. Tylenol. And LOTS of holding and rocking Caris.

I've been in defense mode to prevent the spread of disease. Lysol-ing everything. Mopping floors. Hand washing/sanitizing. Washing anything in sight. Garrett's been wearing a face mask and has sequestered himself to our room. We've pulled out all the stops.

Garrett and I really let illness knock us down; in spite of (or because of?) both working in the hospital. We never call in sick to work and rarely go to the doctor. So when we do, it's usually a pretty bad illness. This bout has had us shut-down for almost a week. Yikes

And Caris fought a good fight against her first virus. It really broke my heart to see sweet Caris in so much pain all week. She would wake up almost every hour at night with painful coughing fits and crying a pained little cry. Her throat hurt, coughing hurt, eyes hurt, and breathing was tough. Night-time has been rough on her. Soooo sad :( But sweet girl was the happiest sick baby I've been around and kept a smile on her face throughout. She was a great little trooper :)

This past week has allowed me to ponder on many a topic; which will probably be best extrapolated in separate posts. Wishing I could stay home every day with Caris, stressing about work, concerns about the health of my family, worrying about getting everything I need to get done. But, an overarching conclusion has been that life, really, is all a matter of perspective. And with that, I am very thankful I was able to spend so much time with my little girl this week. Whatever the reason, however temporary it may be, I had this week with my daughter. And I had a morning with my husband.

I'll take it :)