{i am stronger}

(FYI: this is just my wild thinking, a small journal of my day, and me releasing some emotional pressure. read at your own risk)

This week, we had a Relief Society meeting where they talked about the 'power of positive thinking.' And while I may have made some jokes about things that were said, in truth, it really struck me. Basically, the message was that you are what you think. So if you go around thinking how tired, sad, irritated, depressed, etc you are, that is exactly how you will feel. So I resolved to myself to work on it. Even though I would probably be tired when I got up the next morning, I wasn't going to focus on it and let it rule my day. That being said, I was also in the midst of having had sick kids for the. whole. month.
I had already been to the doc 2x for the little Ks (K2 & K3) and once for me (yea, bronchitis!). I had just gone yesterday for K2, because the cold was triggering his asthma and his coughing/wheezing was out of control. Enter in my nemesis, oral steroids. I hate them. And yet, I can't seem to keep my kids away from them. The winter season brings colds, which are difficult for K2 & K3 to deal with because of their asthma tendencies. K3 has had croup more times than I can count this winter, one time sending us in an ambulance to the ER in the middle of the night. Anyway...
K2 was put on oral steroids to help calm down his lungs since the inhaler/nebulizer wasn't cutting it. As a background, this kid DOES NOT do well with oral steroids. The first time he had them as a 14 month old, he sat on the floor of our house screaming his head off as he went through some fabulous 'roid rage'. Successive treatments of the steroids have been no kinder as he has aged. He doesn't deal well with the emotional response to them. So. Doctor yesterday, had a dose of steroids at bedtime, had a dose when he woke up in the morning. All is well, right? We're on the road to lung recovery. I was relieved because he finally was able to take a nap without constant hacking. I'm about to get some much needed 20 minutes of shut-eye before K1 gets home from school. Cue sudden hysterical crying and screaming from K2.
(Also remember, I'm trying to stay positive, right?)
I spend the next 30 minutes holding his hands, stroking his head, talking quietly to him trying to get him to take deep breaths and calm down. The second I think I'm getting a little headway, he gets all agitated again and I'm back to square one. This is tortuous for me, as I'm sure most of you moms understand. I don't deal well with my kids being sick. I want nothing more than to take it from them and spare them the pain and agony. This emotional pain for Kayden is even worse and tends to put me on an emotional edge as well. 45 minutes later, I'm starting to get worried. This is the worst 'roid rage' episode I've seen from him. He starts screaming about his ear hurting, his throat hurting, back to his ear hurting, then just screaming about "I don't know what's wrong! Make it stop!" I start to get a little panicked. I ended up calling our doc because I didn't know what was going on and they had me bring him in. He still wouldn't calm down. IT WAS HORRIBLE. It seemed like he was in terrible agony, screaming, crying, extremely agitated and upset. Keegan was a champ - that kid helped get his little brother (K3) ready and he sat in the back of the car mumbling prayers under his breath for Kayden to calm down while I drove to the doc with tears streaming down my face, and Kayden screamed his heart out.
Turns out, he had a eardrum that was on the verge of rupturing. The doc said the pressure must have been excruciatingly painful, and the steroids messing with his emotional state didn't help him deal with the pain. I'm thankful it was just an bad ear infection. I was sure he was having some awful reaction to the medicine. How this ear infection was missed YESTERDAY I'm not sure - unless things like this can go that fast? I guess it's possible.
In the end, I survived. I'm not going to say I was completely positive throughout the whole experience, but I feel like I did the best I could at that moment. It definitely was a trial for my resolve to be positive though. And I am hopefully stronger for having made it through, and will be able to handle each experience better as they come.
{i can do this}