Sickness and The Dryer

Worst timing ever: your dryer breaks...and your kids get the stomach flu. At the same time.

Yeah, that's what our weekend was like. It was definitely an adventure.

But there's more. Oh, there's always more.

We discovered Friday night that Hyrum is teething. And not just 1 or 2 teeth. Oh no. He's working on 4.

Saturday, both kids got fevers. Mostly in the 102 range, but occasionally spiking higher. Emma said her head hurt. Both kids had stuffy/runny noses and coughs. They were both pretty grumpy.

Sunday was even worse. It gets pretty gross here, so if you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip the rest. Their fevers got up to 104 and in came the vomiting. Yuck. I hate vomit. So gross. Hyrum threw up twice and Emma threw up 4 times.

Emma taking some medicine:


We obviously stayed home from church. John had to go in for an audit since he's the financial clerk. One tender mercy in this is that no one threw up while he was gone. I'm grateful for that. I think Heavenly Father knows I don't do well with vomit - especially while pregnant.

We had an especially nasty 5 minutes later that afternoon. Emma and I were resting on my bed when Emma threw up - ALL over the bed. And on my arm a bit since I tried to get the bowl to her but didn't make it in time. I went to clean myself up while John helped her. When they came into the bathroom, I saw and smelled it again. It was in her hair and all over her clothes...and I lost it, too. I threw up in the sink. John turned to Hyrum and said, "don't you start, too, Hyrum."

A minute later, Hyrum threw up too. He chugged his milk too fast. So in a 5 minute period, 3 of us threw up. So gross. John is such a sweetheart and cleaned it all up. He cleaned up all the nastiness with this sickness, in fact. I'm SO grateful for such a good husband!

So we had all this nasty bedding and clothing to wash...and our dryer was out of commission. We washed it all and tried to dry it...but no luck. I literally ran the dryer for 4 hours trying to get it dry. It turned and everything, but there was NO heat and the cycle dial didn't budge. We figured the heating element died.

Such lovely timing to not have a dryer. Thankfully, we have the BEST friends and neighbors ever. Not only did our friends bring us Pedialyte and Gatorade, but they were also kind enough to dry our bedding for us. We felt so blessed, despite the nasty bug that had invaded our home.

Fevers were still in the 102-104 range on Monday, so we took the kids to the pediatrician. Emma wouldn't let us give her any medicine beforehand; she wanted the doctor to do it. So by the time they checked her temperature, it was in the upper 104 range. Due to high fevers and throat inflammation, the doctor thought it was bacterial. He did a strep test, which came back negative. That surprised him. But he still thought it was bacterial, so he put them on antibiotics. He's seen lots of cases like this lately that later turned into pneumonia, so he wanted to get them on antibiotics to decrease the chances of that happening.

John stayed home with the kids while I went to pick up their prescriptions and do some grocery shopping. Emma was SO mad that I wouldn't take her with me. She threw the biggest fit over it. She seriously spent over an hour crying about it off and on. She was SO out of it. She loves going shopping, but there was NO way I was taking sick kids to the store.

Since Emma insisted that the doctor give her medicine, he gave her some tylenol while we were there. It was cherry flavored and she hated it. As a result, taking meds became a battle. Normally, she's really good about taking them. I think we only got about 2/3 of her antibiotic in her that day; she spit the rest out when we tried to force her to take it. Forget about trying something for the fever...we tried, but it was super frustrating. John finally got her to take a bit mixed with Gatorade...but there was more fluid than she could handle and she threw it back up. This time, all over HER blankets.

We've finally figured out that she just doesn't like the tylenol. We have the bubblegum kind, but she won't touch it. But we can get her to take the grape ibuprofen. We're making progress with the antibiotic. Thankfully, the doctor prescribed them a stronger one that only needs to be taken once a day.

Our entourage of medicines:


We finally started seeing some improvement yesterday. Emma was pretty out of it for a good chunk of the day; especially since she refused medicine AND food. But she was also really tired from staying up too late the 2 previous nights, so that was likely part of it. Plus the whole being sick and miserable thing. Her fever was still pretty high, too. But things finally started improving in the afternoon. Especially after we got her to eat and take meds.

The very BEST part about yesterday involves the dryer. John asked our apartment manager if he knew anything about dryers. He didn't, but the landlord "just happened" to be there - and he DID. So they came down to our apartment to take a look. Keep in mind that WE own our dryer, not the apartment complex. They were in no way required to help us with it. But they did.

As it turns out, it was the heating element that went out. The coil broke. The landlord then sent John to a specific store with the old part to get a replacement. John mentioned who was helping us with it and the guy at the store knew him.

Our broken dryer coils:


The new heating element wasn't exactly cheap, but it was way less than we were anticipating. Some of the friends who let us use their dryer on Sunday told us that in their experience, it was often more cost-effective to buy a new dryer than replace the heater. So we were thinking it'd be like $200. It was $58 after tax. Definitely better than we thought it'd be. Especially since we didn't have to call in a repair man and pay service and labor fees. We only had to pay for the part. We offered to bake them brownies or something for their effort, but they didn't want anything. SUCH a blessing. We can't help but feel watched over and cared for. We really are taken care of.

The kids had a rough night last night, but they slept in till 1 this afternoon. This is where I found Hyrum when I got up this morning:


And their fevers have finally broken!! YAY! Now to get through the joys of teething. But that'll be nothing compared to this nasty illness.

This is the 4th new post today, so don't miss the other 3!