Service

I have a hard time accepting help. I think a lot has to do me being the eldest...I think I have always had this independence thing along with the fact we move around and at first I don't know anybody and sometimes Dan gets deployed right away and so I figure things out on my own and just make things happen. Today I finally took Isabella into the ER in Lakenheath. She was completely miserable and has had this fever for the past 3 days and our regular clinic wouldn't give me an appointment...just a phone consult in which they told me to give her benedryl and Motrin. So I get on base and my girls are hungry. Dan is sleeping so I had to take them and he had to work tonight so he needed to stay asleep. Taco Bell sounds good to them and they eat....Isabella was bawling so I was holding her and got a few bites in. As we are heading outside we recognize a family....and it was someone I had tried calling last night to tell her I may not be in on Sunday due to an ill baby. So I tell her this and they automatically offer to take Madison and Hannah to see The Princess and the Frog. Madison and Hannah hear this and are jumping up and down since they want to go and I feel terrible just dumping my kids on them on their family outing. But they are insistent and we meet up at the theater and the girls go off with them and I head to the ER with Bells. We are seen right away in the triage....and the super nice Air Force captain tells me he'll get us right in. Well, that doesn't happen since people are walking in super injured and kids that need stitches...so he keeps coming out to apologize and tell us he keeps trying to fit us in. I understand....they have a protocol for who gets priority and Isabella has a low fever so we aren't in a high category. So we wait and we got there at 3:15 and it's now 5:30 so I call the family with my girls and ask if they can just bring them down to the hospital. They come on in, the girls had a great time and then she offers to just stay with me to help out. I tell her it's okay....we'll manage. So she leaves saying that we'll probably see her again since her husband will send her back in.

The girls and I are playing red light green light in the hallway since I'm sitting outside in the pharmacy area so Isabella wasn't around all the cooties in the waiting room. We then play some "Simon Says" and then who comes in....the whole family! They couldn't leave knowing I was there with the 3 kids. So there they sat, keeping me company, their kids playing with my kids and waiting until 6:45 until I was finally called in. They stayed out with my older girls while I found out she had an ear infection in one ear and the other ear was a little red as well, along with a concern that she could end up with bronchitis since she's been congested for so long and she's not sounding so well. So...we got the antibiotics and headed out by 7:25.

The whole way home Isabella cried. It breaks my heart hearing her especially when it's a "pain" cry. But thankfully since I had help today, I didn't have a melt down in my car since I wasn't exhausted from trying to keep 2 girls entertained for 4+ hours in a hospital. The family was such a huge help to me and I'm so grateful for the fabulous people in my life.

And so we came home, Madison and Hannah went to bed, Isabella threw up everything that was in her stomach in one huge fast projectile vomiting session. Isabella, myself, the carpet and the sofa were victims. A bath was then needed...and now I have a sleeping baby.