Goodbye April!!!

I am so glad to be done with April. Can't believe how busy it was and how much stuff happened.
It started off with Dad feeling sick, having more pain and weakness. He was hospitalized and they discovered that the lung cancer was metastatic from his prostate and not a new primary cancer. He came home for a few days, then had increasing pain again and went to the Hospice House. He improved there and came home with Palliative Home Care. Since that time, he has been feeling better overall. He received a blood transfusion and started radiation therapy to his chest and left femur. I have been trying to help Mom and Dad get their affairs in order as no one knows how quickly things might change from here.

Jordon was on antibiotics for most of the month trying to get rid of bilateral ear infections. Apparently he got his Dad's ears; Don has had a lifetime of ear infections, tubes, etc. I don't think I've ever had one in my life. When a round of Omnicef didn't do the trick, they put him on Augmentin. He developed vomitting at night-- not sure if it was related to the antibiotic or if it was another bug he picked up, but anyway, he would vomit every night 1-4 times. Don and I got so sick of stripping the bed, Jordon, and ourselves and washing puke-filled laundry. As soon as he finished eating, he would start with the puking. It seemed to happen the minute you moved him or went to lay him down. Oh, and during this time he didn't want to eat solid food. Then he started with the green diarrhea, up to 6 times/ day. One day he pooped so many times at daycare (his new daycare, that is) that they went thru all his extra clothes and he came home wearing some other kid's sweatshirt cause they had nothing else to put on him. His poor butt became so raw that he would throw a major fit (worse than the usual) when we tried to change him. It took stopping the Augmentin a few days early and some major butt paste to get it healed up. Poor guy walked like a cowboy who had been on a horse too long. The infection did finally clear but if it happens again anytime soon, we are off to the ENT to plan for tubes.

While we were gone the weekend of the 18th for the wedding, our house was shown, and come to find out, the realtor closed the basement door, which the cats need access to for food/water and litterbox. Don had a feeling this might happen, so he called our realtor to check it out and make sure things were ok. The realtor didn't call back until the next day, and then for some reason had trouble getting into the house. By the time he finally did, the cats had already gone to the bathroom in several places so we had a mess to clean up when we got home. Needless to say, we are considering either switching realtors or pulling our house off the market.

On top of this, I had a big talk to do for work that I spent quite a bit of my "time off" working on. I also developed bronchitis and a sinus infection, but had symptoms for a week before I ended up getting antibiotics. I'm still improving from this-- still have a cough and snot but it's much better than it was.

My Mom now has also been sick with something similar. She's had 2 rounds of antibiotics, been on bedrest, and threatened with hospitalization. At first they thought she had pneumonia or mono. Apparently those have been ruled out but she's still coughing and very fatigued.

Already May has been so much better. Jordon loves his new daycare- Bright Horizons at Research. The last 4 days I have dropped him off, he has not wailed. He really seems to like it there. They get the kids outside usually twice a day. The teachers seem very attentive -- several have degrees in early childhood education. They are teaching the kids Spanish and sign-language. Don and I are thinking we probably won't recognize when he is using sign-language 'cause we don't know it ourselves-- aside from the few words they have pointed out.
We also had a great weekend and got a lot of planting done outside. The flowers are looking good with the warmer weather! Don's got about 2 and 1/2 weeks left of school, then he will be off for the summer. I think he has several adventures planned for him and Jordon.