Before I begin describing the harrowing adventures of our holidays, I want to say that in spite of everything that happened, we had a great time visiting family and friends at Christmas in both Houston and Indiana. We are so incredibly blessed to have the loving families that we have to share the holidays with. We love you all! However, that being said, Brian and I are pretty sure that it will be a VERY LONG time before we brave traveling with little kids during the winter holidays...whether that be on airplanes, in airports, in long car rides... in ER's... in urgent care clinics, or any other place OTHER than home!
Ah, though, where to start? I feel like I HAVE to document this somewhere along the way, or I'm going to forget...and honestly, some of it I'm not sure I really want to remember!
Now that I have piqued your interest, you must be wondering, what in God's name happened to them while they were gone? I really think the better question is: what in God's name DIDN'T happen to us while we were gone? Well, simply stated, we did not sever any limbs, we did not die in an airplane or car crash, we were not arrested for any reason, and we actually made it home in one piece...although that last statement may be debatable.
It all started a few days before we left San Antonio, around December 21-22. Addison woke up one morning with a runny nose. No biggie, been there, done that. We're pretty sure that she has allergies, so we just made sure we planned to bring along all the necessary medications that go along with that.
On December 23rd, we pack up the van (and believe me, this van was PACKED) full of kids, the dog, us, the oodles of presents for the girls and family, and our luggage to travel up to Indiana on the 27th. We safely make the 4 hour trip to Houston to spend Christmas with my family with no major problems. Really, looking back, I guess the next day or so in Houston was without any major drama. However, the evening of the 25th began our adventures with Addison's runny nose taking a downward turn. She ended up coughing most of the night, which didn't really keep HER awake, but for the rest of the people in the house, that was another story.
After a sleepless night with Addison, the day of the 26th was mostly quiet as we prepared for our long trip the next day up to have Christmas with Brian's family in French Lick, Indiana. Emily is doing fine at this point, and Addison's cough is sounding more and more productive, but no fever, so we weren't too concerned.
Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with French Lick, it's because it's IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely place in a gorgeous part of Indiana, but not very easily accessible! The plan for the next day was to drive an hour to the airport, fly out of Houston at 9:30am, layover in St. Louis for 1 hour, arrive in Louisville, KY around 2:30 pm, drive 2 hours to French Lick, and have the whole travel day done with by 4:30 or 5pm.
...sounds great in theory, doesn't it?
The night of the 26th was full of fun coughing from Addison, fussiness from Addison, and waking up occasionally from Addison. Poor kid, she clearly wasn't feeling well, but again, we have dealt with runny noses and coughing from her before, we just prepared ourselves for a not so fun travel day...clearly we had NO idea what we were in for.
BBBBRRRRRIIINNNGGG!!!! The alarm clock woke Brian and I up at 5:30am, although I'm pretty sure both of us were not actually asleep....I'm sure it was the exciting anticipation of getting to travel with two toddlers ALL DAY! When I woke up Addison and picked her up out of the crib, she was burning up. Awesome. I told Brian about the discovery of our own little portable mini oven, and when we took her temperature, it was 100.5 under her arm. And with snotty nose goop all over me, I quickly gave her Tylenol, changed her diaper and got her dressed, all the while thinking, we should just get in the van RIGHT NOW and drive home. But then we REALLY would have missed all the fun!
After getting everyone ready and out the door, we pile into the van with my mom (she drove us to the airport), Brian, myself, Emily, Addison, and Allie----wait a minute, Allie? Yes, our faithful pooch came running out of the house when she saw us getting all packed up, clearly distraught that we were leaving her. She jumped in the van and it was as if she suddenly grew velcro on the bottom of her paws. I'm pretty sure that if she could talk, she would have been saying "Turn back, this is a BAD idea, let's GO HOME!!!" Trying to pull her from the floor of the backseat was quite a spectacle. But we were finally able to get her back inside the house, velcro and all, and we left for the airport.
Oh, I almost forgot. At this point, I am about 17 weeks pregnant, and have been feeling fine, aside from the occasional dizziness, feeling kind of sick if my stomach isn't full, etc. Well, this morning was a delightful one for the pregnant mommy! I not only felt kind of sick to my stomach, but every time I would stand up, I started feeling dizzy. It was a great start to the day for all of us.
When we arrive at the airport, we unload everyone and head for the curbside baggage check. As I watched my mom drive away, I remember turning to Brian during a wave of nausea and dizziness and saying something like, "maybe we should just go home right now, this seems like a really bad idea". He agreed with me, and for a few moments, we TRULY almost called my mom to come back and get us. But in the end, like I said, had we gone home right then and there, we would have missed out on all the excitement that was yet to come!!!
Waiting in Houston for our flight was fairly uneventful, Addison had perked up even though she was starting to feel feverish again. Emily was doing great and was so excited about getting on the airplane. I had started to feel better after having a little bit more to eat at the airport (ham sandwich, we'll get to that later), and Brian was doing fine as well. We were just TIRED. As I watched my poor little 18 month old wandering happily around the terminal with a green snotty nose, nasty sounding cough, and FEVER, I all of the sudden felt like "those" parents. You know, the ones you see in public with obviously sick kids, wondering why the hell they are out and about, instead of at home taking care of their kiddos. Well, that was us. Again, our intuition was telling us one thing, and we COMPLETELY ignored it. Guess that's what we get, huh? I will never know how many people we infected with our germiness that day, I'm not sure I WANT to know! I literally followed Addison around with tissues in one hand, and hand sanitizer in the other...you can imagine how funny that must have looked.
As soon as we took off for St. Louis, the pilot comes on and informs us that oh, by the way, there is some really terrible weather (like severe thunderstorms and tornadoes) in the St. Louis area, and depending on how things look when we get up there, we might be diverted to another airport. Great. For those of you who know me well, you know that I DESPISE flying in good weather, so this statement, coupled with everything else, JUST about sent my flying over the edge...no pun intended. I was ok during the flight, trying not to think about things, and the girls did great. Addison fell asleep for the last 10 minutes of the flight, while I held her in a sweaty death grip as we swayed back and forth while coming in for our landing. I was a complete mess, crying, sniffling...pretty much convinced that our lives were soon to be over. BUT, we did land, there were no fire trucks or emergency vehicles waiting for us, and only about 20 minutes ahead of the horrible weather. Bonus!!
We gather our kiddos, get off the plane, and get ready to rush through the airport to our next flight (remember, we have a one hour layover). When we get to our gate, we discover that our flight has been delayed for another hour. No big deal, we welcomed the delay and decided to get some lunch for ourselves and rest for a bit....
FIVE AND A HALF HOURS LATER, we are finally boarded for our next flight. Seriously. We spent the better part of our day chasing around a sick toddler, who probably coughed and sneezed on half the population of St. Louis, trying to keep our 3 1/2 year old entertained, and trying not to go completely stir crazy ourselves. Needless to say, by the time we boarded our flight to Louisville, Brian and I were DONE.
After arriving in Louisville, Kentucky at 8:30pm (again...5 1/2 hours AFTER we were supposed to!) we met up with Nana and Papa Fulling, and Uncle Greg, Aunt Joy, and cousin Noah. It was so good to see familiar faces!! We got our luggage, loaded up yet another van, and headed through the hills and valleys of Indiana to French Lick. The ride was probably another hour and a half, and by the end, we were all feeling sick because of the ups and downs! In French Lick, the plan was for each family (this is each of the Fulling families, meaning Brian's parents, us, and Brian's three older brothers and their wives and kids) to have their own condo to stay in. This was the greatest blessing of all, because we each had a private place to go where we could keep as much of the germiness to ourselves as possible!!
So we are about a minute away from our condo when the heavens opened up. And it started pouring down rain. I don't just mean for a few minutes, this was not going to stop any time soon. I like to think that God was simply sympathizing with our day and crying His eyes out. At this point, at almost 10pm, we just started laughing. It was already 45 or 50 degrees outside, so it was a COLD rain as well. And the parking lot was not right in front of the condo. You had to walk down a hillside sidewalk, and then down some stairs. So we make a few trips back and forth from the van to the condo, delivering wet kids and luggage in the cold rain.
After drying off, getting warm, and getting the girls down to bed, Brian and I threw ourselves down on the couches in the living room, exhausted, trying to figure out if the day had really happened, or if it was just a dream. After decompressing a bit, we went to bed. I guess it was, oh, about 2:30 am when I woke up feeling like something just wasn't quite right in the intestinal department. In the fogginess of half sleep, I vaguely remembered Brian warning me not to buy that ham sandwich from the airport refrigerator earlier in the day, but did I listen??? NO! I will spare you the smelly details here, just know that I had quite a "situation" (as my sister in law Joy would call it) in the bathroom for about an hour. Brian later told me it was reminiscent of a particularly ugly scene from the movie "Dumb and Dumber".
I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
The next day was Sunday, and we decided to see if we could take Addison to some sort of Urgent Care Clinic because she was still very feverish, and her cough had not been getting any better. With French Lick being such a small town, we weren't sure there would be anything available. But thankfully, we happened upon a small community care clinic that was open on Sunday afternoons!!! Addison was seen, antibiotics were prescribed, and we were sent on our way.
For the next few days, we didn't have too much drama. It was so much fun getting to see the cousins all together, even though we brought a cesspool of germs with us. Even though it was so good to see everyone, we will forever be sorry about exposing the ENTIRE family to our mess, and to this day feel like we should have stayed home. Emily had a blast getting to play with everyone. Addison, however, walked around with what looked like a permanent scowl on her face. She was miserable from not feeling well, AND we discovered not one...not two...but THREE teeth that poked through all at the same time! Nothing we did made that kid happy! Thank God Nana was around! Addison wanted nothing more than to be held by Nana for the better part of 3 days!
So fast forward to Thursday morning. Prior to leaving for Christmas vacation, part of our plan was to meet up with three of Brian's best friends and their wives from Illinois to hang out for the day. We decided to divide up the trip, and each drive 2 hours to Indianapolis and meet at the Children's Museum there, let the kids play, and visit for a while. Because Addison was still recovering, we chose to leave her with Nana and Papa, and take Emily, who had been doing fine all week long.
We arrive at the Children's Museum and had SUCH a good time visiting with some great friends, catching up on life, and watching Emily and Lennox play at the museum. After a bit, we all sat down in the back of the museum cafeteria to visit more and get the kids some ice cream. It was about 3pm, and Emily was EXHAUSTED, so she laid her head down in my lap. After a little while, she sat up, eyes dreary, and looked around at everyone. In a moment of TRUE foreshadowing, our friend Craig looked at her and said,
"when Sam gets that look on his face, it usually means he's about to throw up"
No, I'm not lying. As if on cue, Emily opens up and splatters Red Raspberry Sorbet all down her front and on the floor. The poor baby is crying because she doesn't feel good now, and when I felt her head, I'm pretty sure I could have cooked an egg on it. At this point, Brian and I are no longer shocked by a whole lot, so we unfortunately had to say our goodbyes and head back to French Lick. It was amazing how fast Emily went from feeling fine to looking and feeling TOTALLY miserable! Along with the nausea and fever, she developed this runny nose that literally was leaking like a faucet all the way back to French Lick, and a fairly deep and nasty sounding cough. At one point, I looked back at her in the van, and she is asleep. Her head is leaning to one side...and when I looked closer, I saw an inch and a half long string of green snot hanging by a thread from her nose. It was priceless.
Upon our arrival back to French Lick, we didn't even stop in to say hi to everyone. We just thought it would be best to collect our recovering toddler from Nana and Papa, put her in the van with her newly germ infested sister, and go back to our condo to enjoy the illness-fest that would surely be happening that evening!
After yet another sleepless night, this time with poor Emily who was feverish and coughed all night long (thankfully no more vomiting!!!), we woke up Friday morning exhausted. And then...the miracle phone call. Brian's dad (God love him!!) had called the airlines and found the ONLY three seats left on a flight leaving the following morning at 9:30am. Our flight was originally supposed to leave Louisville on Saturday at 4 or 5 PM, putting us in Houston around 8 or 9pm, and that's if there were no delays. HA! This flight would put us in Houston at 12:30pm, giving us plenty of time to load the girls back up into our van, and DRIVE BACK HOME ALL IN ONE DAY!!!!!
We were very excited at this prospect, and spent the day letting the girls rest, getting packed up, and saying our goodbyes to family. It was going to be another early morning, with us getting up at 5:30am in order to be out the door at 6am for the 2 hour drive back to Louisville for our 9:30am flight. BUT, totally worth it to be able to be back in San Antonio on Saturday. Our plan was to get the girls down to bed early, get ourselves down to bed early, and PRAY for just ONE good night's sleep from everyone!!! It just was not meant to be.
Brian and I kept Emily in our room because she had been coughing, so we didn't want her to keep Addison awake. Of course, by doing that, WE stayed awake...again...most of the night. At one point, probably around 1am or so, Addison woke up anyway, screaming and inconsolable, so I went in to pick her up, and held her for a little while on the couch in the living room. During this time, I heard Emily sit up in bed and say, "daddy, I feel sick". After that, I heard the quick footsteps of daddy carrying our poor girl to the bathroom and then..."BLAHHHHH". After a few more of those lovely noises, more footsteps of Emily going back into the bedroom and laying back down in bed with daddy. Poor little sweetheart, I was already wondering how we were going to get through the day if this was going to be happening!
I held Addison for about 45 minutes, and then laid her back down in her crib, and got back into bed with Emily and Brian. Like clockwork, at about 2:30am or so, I awoke...AGAIN...with that not so good feeling in my lower intestines. I remember looking up at the ceiling, trying to see God and thinking, you cannot be serious! Well, He was. Again, without going into any detail, just think another 45 minute episode of "Dumb and Dumber". At one point, Brian came into the bathroom, looking at me with eyes as wide as saucers and just shaking his head in disbelief.
5:30am rolled around quickly, and we got everyone loaded up in the van, said goodbye to French Lick, and actually slept fairly peacefully for the 2 hour ride to Louisville (Brian's dad drove, THANK YOU!!!). At the airport, we got through baggage, security, etc, and got to our gate. The girls were doing pretty well, Emily still had a cough and fever, but by this time, it had just become plain old routine! We board our flight, get our seats.....and sit. And sit, and sit, and sit. The pilot comes on and informs us that there was some "bad weather" in our connecting city, and that air traffic control wanted us to sit tight in Louisville until further notice. Wonderful. After sitting on the airplane for about an hour, the pilot unloaded all of us and said he would let us know when we could leave. If nothing else, our girls really got to know the layouts of both the St. Louis and Louisville airports on our vacation!
3 HOURS LATER...we board our flight, and have thankfully uneventful flights back to Alabama, and then to Houston. This is a good thing, because with everything that happened to us so far, I was a little worried that a good ol' airplane crash might have been in our future. My mom picked us up (by now it was 3 or 4pm)...and since we didn't sleep the night before, AND our flight was so late, we opted to spend the night at my parent's house and leave EARLY Sunday morning for home.
OH, how we JUST wanted to get home!!!!
We had a nice afternoon visit with Rockabye nana and Buppa (my parents), and after dinner, gave the girls nice warm baths, loaded them up with medication, took nice warm showers ourselves, and headed off to bed.
Around 11:30pm, Emily wakes up coughing SO violently that she cannot catch her breath. This is new and had not been happening. Not only was the coughing so severe, it was also making her gag and throw up as well. She also feels hotter than I have ever felt her before. She was terrified, as were we, and we picked her up and went out to the living room floor. I held her upright to try and get the drainage to go down, and Brian did his best to keep her calm. But she was scared and crying (and I don't blame her!) which was making the whole thing worse. It was REALLY scary. After about 15 minutes of this, we made the decision to go to the ER. My parents stayed with Addison, and Brian, Emily and I get into the van and head to the ER. Emily had a few more scary episodes in the van of severe coughing, crying, gagging, but thankfully the ER was only about 10 minutes away.
We arrive in the ER at 12 midnight, and are happy to see that there really were not many people waiting. After the nurse triaged Emily (whose temperature was 103!!!!), he gave her Ibuprofen and had us wait to get called back. By this time, Emily's coughing had improved, so we just held her up in our arms...and waited. An hour later, the triage nurse checked her temp again, 99.3, and Emily was SO much happier. So, we waited some more. And then we waited a little longer. Oh, and THEN we waited a bit more! At one point, probably around 2am, a radiology tech took Emily back to get a chest x-ray....and then we waited some more.
By 4am (I'm not kidding), Emily was asleep in a waiting room chair, and Brian and I were trying to hold ourselves up in the waiting room chairs. At this point, we are one of maybe 3 other people waiting in the room. My butt was asleep, my head hurt, and we thought about just leaving, but since we had the chest x ray done, we figured our insurance wouldn't pay for it if we left "against medical advice" without officially seeing a doctor.
Finally, at 4:30am, we get called back to an ER room. Now, when we go back there, I'm fully expecting to see the hallways and rooms FILLED with moaning and groaning patients to explain why there was such a ridiculous wait to get back there.... NO ONE, not one patient. I don't even think I saw another nurse or doctor in the hallway besides the one who took us to our room. No evidence of the bustling activity that I've seen in busy ER's (and we had been told by the triage nurse that the ER had been "slammed" that evening). Part of me didn't even care, because when we get to the room, there is a BED!!!!! Well, a stretcher, but it was a far cry better than the chairs in the waiting room. We lay Emily down on the stretcher to sleep some more, and the nurse says as she is leaving, "the doctor will be in soon". Famous last words, right?
I end up falling asleep with Emily on the stretcher, Brian has gone out to the van to TRY and sleep a little. When I woke up at 6:15am, we STILL had not been seen by anyone. Ok, now I'm physically and emotionally exhausted, I'm PREGNANT, and no longer capable of being polite. Remember, I'm a nurse, so I tried really hard the entire time we were there to understand why it had taken almost 7 HOURS to be seen by a doctor in an ER that clearly did not seem busy at all. So I walk out to the nurse's station and lost my temper a little with the medical assistant (sorry, I know it's not her fault...I was sleep deprived, hungry, and just plain DONE). Ironically, very shortly after that, we saw a doctor. He informed us that Emily's chest x ray was clear, did a quick exam on her, and said she had a virus, good luck and see ya' later.
All that for a stinkin' virus that we can do nothing about.
So, bleary eyed and exhausted, we pile back into the van and go back to my mom's house. When we arrive at 7:30am, Addison is awake, playing with my mom, and the three of us (Brian, me, Emily) get back into bed and sleep peacefully for about 4 hours. We finally get everything packed up in the van and are out of the door at about noon. On our drive back to San Antonio, I think both of us were waiting to get rear ended, get stopped by the cops, or SOMETHING. But praise the Lord, we made it home safely, and I have to say, I don't think I have ever been happier to see our front door!
On Monday, we took Emily back to our pediatrician because she had more violent coughing spells, and he determined that she probably contracted RSV which turned into a secondary lower lung infection. So now she is also on antibiotics and is recovering fine. Our kitchen counter top resembles a pharmacy right now, but we have had no nightly coughing from either kid for about a week now!
So that about does it for our story. I look back on all this, and although it's funny now, I really can't believe it all happened in a week and a half. I'm sure some of you have worse stories, but for us, this was the pinnacle of Murphy's Law. You might be saying, wow, it's a good thing Anne and Brian didn't get sick as well. I just left that part out. We, too, were sick the whole time with runny noses, a little coughing and sinus headaches, but it just was nothing compared to our poor girls!
Thanks for listening, sorry this was so long, I mostly put it down so that I can remember everything that happened! We find out tomorrow whether this baby is a boy or a girl (Wednesday January 14th), and we're excited!
See ya!
Christmas Eve in Houston at church
Merry Christmas!!!
Emily, Ella, Lauren and Jessica in French Lick
I just want my Nana!!!
Bomber hat...cool!
A night out with brothers and sister-in-laws!
All the Fulling cousins together
