Hiding out and ignorant ERs.......

I'm not going to even try to lie. Ive been hiding, making excuses, avoiding any real thought or logical reasoning for quite a while. My posts, however few and far between, have remained superficial for a reason. There are people reading this that I just don't want to open up to. Isn't it ironic that those who are closest to us, are the ones that we keep the most from.

I would share nearly anything with some of my readers whom I have never met, yet hesitate....leave out certain things with my family and my friends....backwards much? I think not.

Everyone has ideas of who they think you are. When things go wrong, go right, when things just don't add up.....Do you really want to seek advice from the people who already think you're a bitch, think you're retarded, think that you are, by far, the family f&%k up? I think not. I just don't want to hear..."well Juli, you know, we told you so." Or "well, that's just the way things go." Or worse yet, not hear anything and let another family member come back to you and say "hey, you might want to lay low, they re talking about you again."

I've made a huge mistake. HUGE, giant, gargantuan, massive mistake. How to fix it? I don't know. Some of the most traumatically horrible things that have happened in my life have been a result of me trying to "fix" my mistakes.....I don't think I'm going to fix this one, just going to let it happen. No sugarcoating, just let it go ahead and blow up and see where the pieces fall.

All of this lies beneath what is really going on. Natalie. Natalie is always going on. She is a never ending pile of worry and fear.

We had our 3 month checkup yesterday. O2 sats are still down, cough, no fever, just general yuck.....so what do we get? 21 days of antibiotics....yeah, you heard me 21 days. That's nearly a month! aaaaannnnnd its Omnicef. She hates this stuff with a passion. She gags, she runs, anything she can do to get away from the white medicine, she does....its going to be a long 21 days.

Treatment frequencies are increased, mls have been increased, its too much, too fast. I'm trying to absorb it all and figure out what it means, while trying to carry it out simultaneously. What does it mean? Nothing. Everything. It means she is sick. CF sick. Not I have a cold, I have bronchitis, I have strep, I have a sinus infection, nor an ear infection...there is a difference, she is CF sick and that scares me.

To top it off, she decided to jump off of the sofa last night. She landed directly on her right side, her rib cage began to bruise immediately. I just knew she had broken something. So, after a day in New Orleans with the CF team. We spent the night at the hospital with the other late night ER peeps. In general, it could have been worse. She entertained us, and the waiting room. It wasn't a total loss. She's going to be a star one day. She loves the attention, so animated, so full of life...even when she is sick, even when it hurts to cough, even with bruised ribs, she is larger than life. My tiny ball of light and energy, waiting to give me a heart attack.

On the flip side, she may as well have been a rat in a cage to the ER doc. We went to a new hospital that we don't usually go to because it was closer, apparently they don't see much CF. The nurses, only concerned about her cough, the MD's...they too, only concerned about her cough....even the xray tech, concerned about her cough. After correcting each of them that we were not there for her cough, she was already being treated for that, that we were actually there because she fell, the same confused "seriously?" look on their face....."...But she has CF, and a cough..." the ER doc replies ignorantly...."Yes, she does, and a 21 day course of antibiotics ahead of her....I just need to know if I can do her vest treatments without puncturing a lung, that's all..." She stutters to find words, I had to explain to her what a "vest treatment" was after she asked what kind of nebulizer treatment that was...yeah, it was awesome. So after 5 hours hanging out in the ER, we got the go ahead to go home, her xrays were clear as far as broken bones, but her chest xray wasn't too hot. Guess they wanted to throw that in there for the fun of it, perhaps for their amusement, hopefully for their education. And yes, there is a difference between taking an xray of the right side of her rib cage and a chest xray....

Soooo here I sit. Ive picked up a 2nd job. I don't have much free time. I do apologize for the abrupt exit. I'm trying to get my brain back. It seems to have gone on vacation. wish I could have gone too. much love ~j

8 am on a Tuesday morning.....what could possibly go wrong?

Let the food wars begin!

I guess if I were 3 and I had people shoving medicine down my throat and up my nose and strapping me into weird shaking contraptions, I would want to control what I could too. The problem is that Natalie chooses to control food. She doesn't realize what she's doing.....

Other times I think its just genetic.....there are some picky people in the family and her eating bears a close resemblance to them. The good news is that they all have outgrown it, the bad news is that it took each and every one of them a minimum of 20 years to accomplish that. I don't have 20 years to wait for her eating habits to change.....

If its green you can forget it, if it has more than one part to it (ie. a hamburger) you can forget it, if it requires being chewed for more than 15 seconds you can forget it....this leaves very little to choose from, but I am ever diligent, ever trying new things.

Sesame Street is blaring on the TV over the sound of the vest between phone calls to the MD office...... Natalie is coughing, but no fever, I think this is worse than being "real" sick. They wont do anything if she isn't running a fever, we just have to up her treatments and hope for the best. If they had to watch her cough and gag and sit on the sideline helpless to do anything but encourage her, maybe they would be more concerned, I'm not sure. Maybe there really isn't anything they can do, maybe we're already doing everything that we can.

Other than the (make you gag along with her) cough that Natalie has....she's fine. No fever, no malaise, no other signs or symptoms which makes for an awkward situation. To go out or not to go.....she needs her exercise, that will help, but I don't want to get her over tired or overheated and potentially do more harm than good. ugh!

Maybe a little further evaluation of the situation is in order, its early. Natalie was up and moving early this morning....that means we're all up and moving early.