Christmas Eve

So, we arrived in Carthage on Sunday evening, December 22nd. We pretty much just hung around and visited with family most of the time we were there. I noticed that Isaac seemed a bit warm on Sunday evening, but just gave him some Tylenol before bed thinking it was just a bug or something and he would be better in the morning.

Boy was I wrong.

When he got up on Monday, he was absolutely burning up with fever and you just tell that he felt miserable. My Mom had to work, but she had gotten my grandmother to take her that day just in case we got up and Isaac was worse. I'm so thankful that she did. Me and the kids got dressed and headed out for Lebanon to a walk-in clinic at Walgreen's. We arrived a little after 9:00 and got checked in, but there were several other people there already waiting so I didn't have the best feeling about things, but I didn't know what else to do. My baby was obviously sick and I had to get him well. After a couple of hours (yes, that says hours) they finally called us back to get him triaged. They checked his temp, which was 103 and also tested him for the flu, but the medical assistant said it would take a bit for the test to process and that we needed to go back out to the waiting area until they were ready. By this time, it's almost lunch and none of us had even eaten anything, but I was afraid to leave because I didn't want to lose our place so we waited some more. The little medical assistant came back out about an hour later and said Isaac was positive for the flu, but they would get us back as soon as they could.

So there we are.....sitting in the waiting area of Walgreen's with a flu positive child running a 103 degree temp who is miserable and just wants to go home.

Needless to say, this was not a very happy Mama at that point.

FINALLY, we got called back and examined by a nurse practitioner. Let me start by saying I work with several nurse practitioners that I would trust my life with and are extremely competent, but this one??? Let's just say that I was always taught that if you can't say something nice you shouldn't say anything at all so I'm just not going to say anything at all about the nurse practitioner we saw.

Anyway, she prescribes the Tamiflu and at my request, prescribes it as a preventative for Layla as well and we finally walk out of Walgreen's at ten minutes until four.

Remember, we had been there since a little before nine that morning so needless to say, we were completely exhausted and starving so the first thing we did after leaving was grab some food. We then hit the road back to Carthage and stopped at the pharmacy to get their meds before going back to Mom's house. Stunned only begins to describe my feelings when they told me the total for those 2 prescriptions of Tamiflu........my total was over $300! Yes, it stinks and is completely ridiculous, but I really didn't have any other choice at that point in time.

We finally made it back to Mom's and just crashed. It had been a completely exhausting day and we were just worn out.

Darren arrived at my Grandmother's in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, which is where my family always gathers for dinner. This is the only time of year that I get to see a lot of these folks so I always look forward to it. Again, we tried to get pictures before everyone started to arrive and Layla was somewhat cooperative this time, but refused to get in the family photo we tried to get so we just completely missed out on a family shot for Christmas 2013.

Better luck next time I guess.

These photos here of Layla are a perfect reflection of her personality. She is a little firecracker who keeps us on our toes all the time, but she is a hoot and I can't imagine our little family without her!

 

Uncle Patrick and Laura

Grandma

Moms

After opening gifts, we loaded back up and headed to Savannah. It's a long drive and it's usually pretty late when we get in bed as we have things to prepare when we get to Savannah, but it's important for us to have our own little family time on Christmas morning with the kids and their Santa stuff so it's completely worth it.