one difficult week

We have had a long, kind of rough week around here.

Two weekends in a row the girls have had extra days off school, and we planned that they would spend the first weekend with my parents, and then for the second we hoped to visit a museum that we've been looking forward to seeing for a while. Everything started a little over a week ago when Emma got really sick to her stomach at my parents' house. So their first weekend of fun didn't go exactly as planned, and poor Emma was miserable.

After being sick for about a day and half, I brought her to the doctor last Tuesday, knowing there was little they could do for a stomach flu. The doctor was not very concerned about her stomach symptoms, he said it would likely run its course within a couple of days and just asked that we do our best to keep her hydrated. He was more worried that she didn't seem to be over her illness from December that he had treated with antibiotics and steroids. She had a sinus infection and an inner ear canal infection that he felt was all related to what she had been fighting off a month ago.

She ended up missing the entire week of school. I don't think she sat up for more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time all week, and she barely left the house. Each morning, I kept expecting that this would be the day that she would start to improve and get back to her regular boundless energy self, and it took until Saturday before she started feeling much better. I think starting out with an upset stomach and adding some pretty powerful antibiotics to that really wiped her out. It was a hard week for her.

Rebekah has also had a rough go at it this week. When we went to pick Alyssa up from gymnastics on Thursday night, Rebekah split her lip open. She was playing with her friends as she always does when we're at the gym. The kids were running up to jump on the trampoline and she slipped on one plastic stair and bumped her face on the next plastic stair. It didn't bleed too much, and at first didn't look too bad. Alyssa and Emma have split their lips open at different times, and in both cases we were told it would be best not to put stitches in their lips if it could be avoided, but after closer examination of Rebekah's cut we decided she should go to the ER. The cut is tiny, but in the corner of her upper lip, where I was told the skin is very delicate and the healing of this spot could be troublesome if it is not stitched up. So I'm thankful we took her in.

The doctor came in to look at Rebekah's lip, and I immediately felt comfortable with how he kindly spoke to her and how carefully he examined her. I did take notice of how young he was, like maybe barely out of medical school young. His age didn't matter though, I felt very confident with his assessment of her injury and his ability to help her. The next guy who came in had huge muscles and he explained that he would be holding Rebekah's head still so that Doogie Howser could put the stitches in while I would try to hold her papoosed body still. They discussed how to place her on the table and Muscles said to Doogie, "No, Dude. We gotta do it like this." And he shifted her head to the other side of the table where the exam light would not be blinding her. Very considerate. I had to stop and think to myself though, okay, these are the two guys who will be repairing my daughter's tiny mouth and the word dude is being thrown around the room freely ~ awesome.

I joke about it, really because it was the only laughable part of the whole situation or even our entire week for that matter. They did a wonderful job, were very efficient and careful with her, and I appreciate everything they did so much! I wanted to post a picture of both Emma and Rebekah here so you could see how much improved Emma is feeling, and see how Rebekah's lip is really not that bad. Unfortunately, as the healing process sometimes goes, I think it is looking a little worse now than it did earlier. I know it will get better soon! A complication of her healing has been that Friday, almost a full week after Emma came down with a stomach flu, Rebekah caught it. I can't imagine that all the vomiting she has done over the weekend has been any good for her stitched lip, but she's a trooper and is holding up okay. I promise I'll post a happy picture in a couple of days once she's better.

To {almost} quote one of our favorite book characters, Mr. Slinger:
"Today {last week} was a difficult day {week}.
Tomorrow {this week} will be better."