Sickness update

I did take Gerrit to the walk-in clinic last Sunday. They did another x-ray and the pneumonia had not gotten worse but the doctor prescribed another antibiotic and said he should stay home two or three more days and gave him a medical excuse for his file at school. Gerrit had a lot of side effects from all his medicines he was on and we discovered that the last one they prescribed he was allergic to since he broke out in hives and was itchy.

I ended up taking Aleah and Donovan to the walk-in clinic Monday night. Donovan has had a cough for about three weeks and wasn't getting better (I suspected a sinus infection-I was right) and Aleah had started coughing over the weekend but had no fever. She came home from school that day and said nine out of 18 kids in her class were gone and six out of 18 in the other class were also gone. They were suppose to have their music program Tuesday night but that was thankfully postponed. She was given cough medicine. We really wanted to keep Donovan home on Tuesday-just to rest since he didn't seem like he felt good but he was bound and determined to go to school-I think we would have had to literally sit on the kid to keep him home. I was at the walk-in clinic for close to two and a half hours on Monday night.

As the week went on the kids have not gotten worse but their coughs still seem bad. I guess it's just something that has to run its course. Samantha has a little cough but still feels good. Gerrit seems a little more like himself-he's started arguing with Aleah and Donovan. I'm glad there wasn't school on Thursday and Friday so he had more time to rest up and also to catch up on homework. I've helped him with English and Global Studies and today Bruce and I helped him with Science. Tomorrow he'll tackle Math.

Gerrit did have his third hearing test on Thursday. The audiologist said it wasn't as good as the last one so she had us see Dr. Wink who wasn't concerned and said he's ready for his next ear surgery next month-another two hours at the hospital-four times in one week-over eight hours total.

We did go to Papa's Pumpkin Patch on Friday. We have went every year since 2001. The weather has not been very cooperative this year and they close today or tomorrow so we went for awhile on Friday to get some pictures. Today we went to a movie. Bruce and the boys went to "Where the Wild Things Are" and the girls and I went to "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." I've also been busy putting summer clothes away-three kids done one to go!!

I sub all day Monday and Friday this week and Wednesday afternoon. I could have subbed everyday that Gerrit was home sick. I think a lot of teachers are sick or have sick kids. This should be a fun week since I'll be at the kids' school. We also have the school carnival on Friday night and on Halloween Aleah has her basketball tournament and then there's trick or treating. We're wondering when we'll have time to carve pumpkins. I can't hardly believe it's almost Halloween-Christmas will be here before we know it. On that note-I asked Samantha what she wanted for Christmas and her reply was, "My own bathroom."

Pneumonia

Gerrit came home from school on Monday and said he didn't feel good. He went downstairs and slept until supper. I knew he was getting sick-he never naps. Tuesday he stayed home and started coughing. Donovan has had a cough for almost three weeks now so I figured Gerrit was catching something like that. The week continued on and Wednesday night Gerrit had a fever around 103 and his cough was so bad plus his chest hurt and he was getting short of breath. Bruce was out of town so I couldn't take him to the clinic that night. I brought Gerrit to the walk-in clinic on Thursday morning. The doctor suspected he had H1N1 and pneumonia. He had a breathing treatment, nose swab to test for H1N1, and an x-ray. We were at the hospital for two and a half hours. The results weren't back right away but the doctor started treatment for pneumonia and H1N1. The results on Friday were no H1N1 but pneumonia.

I would say that Gerrit is not any worse but I don't see any improvement yet plus now he's having side effects from the medicine-diarrhea. I'm pretty sure I'll be taking him to the walk-in clinic in the morning and I don't think he's going to feel like going back to school on Monday. Hopefully he can get there Tuesday and Wednesday-it's a short week because of teacher's convention.

Samantha was also with to the walk-in clinic on Thursday. She woke up at 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning and threw up. She continued throwing up until around six a.m. She laid around and slept most of the day and around four thirty she got up and started coloring and she was back to normal. A friend of mine also had her daughter at the walk-in clinic when we were there and she was throwing up the next day too. Weird.

I wasn't overly concerned about H1N1 influenza before but now that Gerrit is fighting pneumonia it worries me a bit. Pneumonia leaves a person weak for quite awhile and he might have complications from it that he might not have had before he had pneumonia. I'll just do some extra praying. Hope you're all staying healthy.

2009 Pheasant Opener

This past weekend the boys and I headed down Strasburg way for the pheasant hunting season opener. Saturday arrived cold and brisk - it was 20 deg. and windy when we headed out in the morning. We had three hunters and ended up with three pheasants. Gerrit went along the whole while and stayed in the pickup about half the time and walked with us the other half. We needed him to walk some areas where three people just are not enough. He carried his BB gun and one time thought he was separated from the group, so he shot it off hoping we would hear it and find him. I didn't take the camera with while hunting so I don't have any pictures of our excursions.

Donovan mostly stayed with Grandma at the house. Most of his time was spent coloring, working in a word find book, and looking at the globe. He also had dog walking duty in the morning and took Sadie out for a bathroom breaks numerous times.

Speaking of which, now may be a good time to post pictures of one of the cutest dogs around - our Sadie. Her time at the farm can be put into one of the four following categories: playing with her toys, chewing on her pork hide stick, sleeping, and looking out the living room window. The pictures below were taken within a five minute time frame. No, I'm just kidding. Overall, she was a very good dog for the visit.

Feels Like Fall

It feels like fall or actually it's felt a little more like winter. We had a trace of snow on Friday and it was not a nice weather weekend or week. There are good things about cold weather though. I subbed a full day on Friday-actually it was less than six hours but I got paid for a full day and when I got home and had put a load of laundry in and got on Facebook I read a lot about people baking cookies so Samantha and I made chocolate chip cookies and they were ready by the time the kids got home-warm cookies and milk-it doesn't get much better then that!

Bruce and the boys left for rural Strasburg late in the afternoon for pheasant hunting and we did some quick cleaning and went out to Subway for supper and did some shopping that night. When we got home we watched a movie and had hot buttered popcorn. Saturday morning Aleah had a basketball game and we came home and ate lunch. We headed out for more shopping after that and the girls are set for winter weather. We had a free Dominoes pizza for supper and watched a movie.

We decided to make monster cookies today-I'm freezing a lot of them since it made so many cookies. I also made homemade bread (completely by hand-no bread machine) and homemade soup for supper. It was something I made up myself and Bruce said I should write it down because it was really good. I just love making homemade soup in the fall and winter months-it's just not the same when it's hot outside and it makes the house smell so good.

This week looks to be a slow week for subbing but that could change. I only have Tuesday morning so far. I do hope I can pick up another day or day and a half-that would be about right. I have lots of things to do around the house-put away summer clothes and get out the winter stuff-I am done with Samantha's but I have the other three left to go through yet. We're also going to Bead Chicks for Girl Scouts on Thursday-I'm looking forward to that and I have to sit down and do some paperwork for Girl Scouts-not looking forward to that. I want to see how many hours the girls have left to get their Bronze award and then we can do fun stuff the rest of the year. We are planning on going to Sioux Falls the first week of June to see Melissa Gilbert in a Little House on the Prairie show and then stop in DeSmet and tour the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I'm glad we have a small troop this year.

Friday Afternoon Musical Interlude

Week in review

Just another busy week around our household. The kids didn't have school last Monday because of a teacher inservice-Samantha had preschool though and Aleah took in the Super Sitter class at the YMCA. I subbed everyday-all half days except for Thursday which was a full day. I did a Kindergarten, 3rd/4th grade, 4th grade, and a sixth grade. The Kindergarten class was by far the most interesting class. A little girl in the class pulled down her pants and showed everyone her bottom. I also accompanied Samantha's preschool class out to Papa's Pumpkin Patch on Wednesday.

Mom and dad visited last week. They watched Samantha on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday when I subbed. Donovan wasn't feeling good so I took him home at lunch on Thursday since I was at the school. He doesn't feel that great but that day he seemed to improve greatly after I left and told mom he didn't feel that sick-I think he just wanted to stay home with grandma. Mom and I got some shopping in on Thursday evening.

I took some things to a friend's rummage sale this weekend and what didn't sell I dropped off at the thrift store. Aleah had a basketball game yesterday-they lost 17-14-low scoring game. I also canned the last batch of salsa-I got 19 pints. I plan on doing a double batch of spaghetti sauce on Thursday and canning just plain tomatoes and then I'm done-tomatoes for giveaway!!

Gerrit and his friend Joseph went to the movie theater by themselves on Saturday-they saw the double feature of Toy Story-3D. Tonight for Shine (youth group at church) Gerrit went to The Fire with Josh McDowell at the Civic Center. I can't believe he's old enough to do things without having us with him-he'll be 13 in less than six months!

I have another busy week coming up-two full days and a half day of subbing plus everything else. It will be so nice to be done with garden stuff soon-last year I didn't even get started until late October and this year I'll be done by the middle!