Those of you who have been following my Facebook posts this week know that our family has been plagued by H1N1 this week. Sydney was diagnosed with it on Monday. Despite our best efforts to keep her cough under control, her reactive airway disorder kicked in, and by Wednesday night she was coughing so hard she was throwing up everything she ate. I called a couple of guys from church who came right over to give her blessing. After a rough night, we were back at the clinic Thursday morning.

The nurse we initially dealt with was really ticking me off. She kept going on about how the cough can last for a few weeks after the illness. I kept explaining that her cough was getting worse, not a residual post-flu cough, but she wasn't listening. The doctor, however, was more helpful. She changed one of the medications Sydney had been on, gave her another medication in a nebulizer, redid her chest x-ray (still clear, thank goodness), and gave her another nebulizer treatment since the first one hadn't loosened Sydney's lungs as much as she had expected. Sydney had also broken out in hives right before we went in and the Benadryl was totally knocking her out by the time we finished. We were there for two hours trying to get her well enough that the doctor felt like she could go home. During this ordeal, my wonderful friend Cassie was watching Zack and Tansy. There is no way I could have gotten Sydney through everything with them there.

By late Thursday afternoon, I noticed definite improvement in Sydney's breathing and a reduction in her coughing. She wasn't out of the woods yet, but at least we were going in the right direction.

Just in time too because that evening after the kids had gone to bed, I started coughing and feeling achy. I had an appointment with my OB at 9:00 the following morning, at which time we discovered my temperature was going up as well. She prescribed Tamiflu and told me to start it immediately since we had caught it so early. I was a so scared because I have so many risk factors. I'm pregnant, I have reactive airway disorder as well, and I am extremely suseptible to pneumonia when I get the flu. This is why I ALWAYS get vaccinated. In fact, I had received an email Thursday afternoon saying that the H1N1 vaccine was available at the clinic on base and had planned to go in on Friday. What timing.

Because of my risk factors, my doctor warned me that if I got any sicker that I would need to go straight to the ER, especially since we were going in to the weekend. So I spent the afternoon on the phone setting up with friends to be on ER alert. My friend Camara also brought dinner over for us that evening. I also got a blessing from the same guys who gave one to Sydney. It really helped me to relax and know everything would be okay.

So what did that mean for Halloween, you ask? I called yet another wonderful friend named Roxanne and asked her to bring over some dinner for us last night then take the girls out trick-or-treating. It was really sad that neither Ben nor I got to go with them since it is so much fun to watch them. They only went to a few houses because I didn't want Sydney out too long since she is still recovering. I know they look totally mad at me in this picture, but I think that's just because they wanted to get out the door, not take pictures. Sydney is a dinosaur and Tansy is a flower. Today, I am doing better than I expected. The priesthood and modern medicine are wonderful blessings in my life. I am still confined to the couch and have to be careful about talking too much. Yeah, I know how many of you are chuckling about that. I have dinner coming for the next four days and someone to help with housework tomorrow. I am so blessed to have so much love and support. Not only are there so many people that are willing to help when I ask, but many that insist and helping regardless. I hope to have better news about the health of this family next week.