My baby girl graduated Kindergarten last Friday. She was SO excited and had a blast being the “grown up kid”. She loves telling people she’s in first grade now. Her official “diploma” is a fairly lengthy evaluation by the teacher and she’s just learned so much in the last couple years…it’s amazing. She’s ready for the next step and I think I might have a hard time getting her to take a summer vacation from school work!
Then my hard working, brilliant husband graduated with his PhD on Saturday. He started graduate school two months before Sierra was born and it has been a long, hard journey. It was very rewarding for both of us to have him stand up on stage in front of a packed auditorium while his name and the title of his dissertation were read and his advisor placed his hood. These graduations are not like the typical (at least at TAMU) undergraduate graduations…each graduate actually got their time on stage to be recognized, which was nice.
In the midst of all of the graduation celebrations, we were fast and furiously packing and loading the Uhaul for our move to Montana. Okay, so I was working a little and resting a lot, and the guys (Josh’s brother came to help us with the move) were working their tails off. We ended up getting a late start on Monday because there’s just only so much you can do in 24 hours. Our original plan was to stop in Amarillo the first night. Around dinner time, we figured we could hit Amarillo around 11pm or a little later and we should just go for it. Little did we know a massive storm was sitting over Amarillo spawning tornadoes and large hail. We avoided the tornadoes (thanks to the truck drivers who stopped and blocked the road outside of town), but drove right into the hailstorm and flooding. Then the hotel (where we didn’t have reservations) was all full for the night. We finally got into a room at 1:30am.
The second day was going pretty okay…we took our time getting out and the plan was to drive to Denver. Things were great until Sierra got extra fussy about 2 hours from our destination. I reached back to feel her neck and sure, enough, she was hot. Pulled over, dug out the thermometer and she had a 102 fever. This was interesting mainly because we had taken her to the emergency room late Wednesday night because she was screaming and crying with ear pain. So, by this point, she had taken nearly a week’s worth of Amoxicillin and was still occasionally saying her ear hurt and now had fever. Thankfully, this momma has learned her lesson and we never travel without a box of meds available anymore. Got her some advil and she was good to go. We made it to Denver at a reasonable time, go to bed early and let the kids swim a little the next morning.
The third day was looking up until Sierra’s fever came back around 10am. I knew the ear infection was going to get way worse as soon as we stopped the Amoxicillin. We called her pediatrician back in Texas to ask for something stronger, but they said they couldn’t call in a prescription in another state. So we called our insurance and found an in-network urgent care provider. Got a great doc who checked her over, and then finally looked in her ears again. Sure enough, that same one is red and bulging. So she got stronger antibiotics plus antibiotic ear drops. We hit the road (late again) and headed for Billings. Josh’s brother had left ahead of us with the Uhaul (not knowing the doctor visit was going to become necessary) and ended up several hours ahead of us, so he did the whole day by himself. We pulled into Billings around 11:30pm.
This morning, we got up and got a relatively early start. Sierra still had fever this morning, but she’s only 2 doses into the new meds, so no worries. Stopped in Bozeman and had lunch with an old friend at a cool local café. Hit the road again with the guys in the Uhaul and me in the van with both girls and both dogs. Montana is a bit like Texas---you drive forever without seeing anything. So, of course, I get sick. Several stops later, I’m finally feeling better, we finally get to Missoula (last big city before Hamilton). Sierra complains her throat hurts, but it’s VERY dry compared to what we’re used to and she’s not drinking a lot, so I hand her water to drink and she’s fine. We made it to Hamilton, started unloading and Sierra walks in (about 7 hours after her last Advil dose) looking like crap. She’s up to 102 again. I finally look in her throat----completely covered in white patches. Who the heck develops strep while currently on antibiotics?? I double checked and both her old antibiotic and her new one are effective against strep, plus the dosages for treating ear infections are higher than what you give for strep. So I’m thinking it must be viral or a secondary fungal infection? She definitely has the ear infection too…..not thinking there’s a point in visiting a doctor because what else would they do? Doing the ol' benadryl and maalox trick we learned when she had the flu last year and going to get her acidophilus today in case it's thrush.
On the good side, the house we rented sight-unseen is a lot bigger than I pictured. It reminds me of the houses in Salt Lake…it’s all old hardwood floors and the really old doorknobs/locks on the interior doors (new stuff on the outside). We can see mountain peaks on both sides of us from the house. The town is tiny, but also bigger than I was imagining. Missoula (the nearest Target, Cosco, Petsmart, Barnes and Noble, etc…) is further away than I thought, it’s an hour drive and 5 miles of that is currently dirt road. While unloading tonight, a neighbor came over to introduce himself—he works in lab very near the one Josh will be in and has a 2 year old and 12 year old. He’s already given us the scoop on docs for the kids, what restaurants are good and which ones aren’t and where to get free wi-fi……which is what I’m going to do right now so I can post this!
2 comments:
Poor Sierra! (and Mommy too!) I can't believe that on top of an extremely long drive, being sick yourself, that then y'all had to deal with Sierra getting so sick during all this.
Ahh! Wish I'd thought to tell you about the prescription stuff not going over state lines. We've run into that before as well with all our cross country moves. I'm glad you guys made it! At least the unpacking doesn't have to be done quickly. Hope you guys are able to rest now and that Sierra might finally be on the mend.
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