Sunday, March 17, 2002 - Asthma Attacks and Possible Paralytic Postures

Last Monday, Bobby and Hannah (and Aaron, of course) were going to Omaha on an errand for David (perhaps you’ll recall, Bobby, too, works for Walker Construction), and they invited Hester and Lydia to go with them.  They went to Barnes and Noble Bookstore, and the girls bought some books.  They then went to Burlington Coat Factory, where Bobby splurged and bought himself a warm black trench coat--a rare enough occurrence for that generous young man, who can much easier think of things everyone else needs, it seems.

Mama is better now, although I think she lost a few precious pounds and seems weaker.  The first few days of last week, she slept a lot and ate little.

Tuesday, Bobby had to go to Lincoln on another errand for David, and this time Dorcas went with them.  They planned to go shopping when the errand was finished.

That morning, at Mama’s house, as Dorcas was rushing around getting ready to go, Mama said to her, “Well, you won’t be able to go shopping.”

Dorcas stopped and looked at her grandmother, wondering why she’d said that.

Mama didn’t crack a smile.  “You can’t go,” she repeated, “because you don’t have any shoes.”

That, because although it was time for Dorcas to leave, she was still barefoot.

“I think your Grandma is getting better!” laughed Sarah, Esther’s mother, who was going to stay with Mama that day.

Having finished the Easter sewing, I spent one afternoon doing the mending that had accumulated, and I also hemmed a pair of new black pants for Bobby.  He got the suit for Easter.  The pants are cuffed, and Hannah wasn’t sure how to hem them.  Next, I hemmed the maroon knit dress I got for Hester at Salvation Army, and used the material I cut off the bottom to make an insert at the neckline, which I couldn’t get in straight to save my life.  I finally gave up, left it crooked, and patched four pairs of jeans.  Jeans don’t mind a bit if their patches are whoppyjaw.

That afternoon, the Schwan man came with his truck of frozen food.  Since work had picked up a bit for Larry, I got a sizable pile of groceries.  The Schwan man likes me again now, the fickle man.  He should feel sorry for me when I haven’t enough money to buy food!  Instead, he goes away looking dejected, feeling sorry for himself.

For supper, we had ham and cheese pockets, vegetable soup, and fresh strawberries for dessert.  Soon there was the usual scurry for the showers and the curling of Hester and Lydia’s hair and the finishing of homework and the reading of a Bible story to the littles...and then it was bedtime.  Several kids went racketing down the stairs, accompanied by a cat or two looking to cuddle up at the foot of a bed.  Or the head.  Victoria went, too, although her bedroom is upstairs, and she doesn’t need to go to bed as early as her elder siblings, since she doesn’t go to school.

Things were beginning to quiet down then, and Victoria came back upstairs and informed her sister, “Lydia!  I just put Caleb to bed!  I wrapped him up and turned out the light.”

One afternoon, Larry bought a much-needed ladder, and Joseph and Teddy finally took the Christmas lights down.  Teddy doesn’t appreciate jobs that entail his being several feet off the ground, on a sloped roof, yet.  He prefers keeping his feet on terra firma, thank you.  You know, it’s not so bad when you have those little bitty lights nearly concealed in the gutter along the eaves; but when you have those long dangly icicle lights, they stick out like sore thumbs along about February or March.  Luckily, several of the neighbors haven’t removed their Christmas lights, either; so we weren’t the only odd ones out.

After working on the go-cart that evening, Larry replaced my broken piano strings.  By the time he finished, the children were all asleep, so I didn’t tune it, for fear of awakening them.

Wednesday, I cut out clothes for our Fourth-of-July picnic:  dresses for Hester, Lydia, and Victoria; shirts for Caleb and Aaron.

Wednesday, Joseph had such an earache, he spent most of the time in bed.  Days earlier, Hester had had the same malady, and could only sleep after I gave her a hot water bottle to lay her head on.

I was the first one home from church that night.  I pushed open the door, bumped two metal chairs that had taken up residence behind it, and sent them crashing to the floor.  One chair hit Victoria’s metal musical top, adding to the general din.  Most likely Larry, the last one out the door, had slammed the door on his way out, jostling the chairs and putting them into a disposition to resume their descent the moment they were further agitated.

I propped the chairs back up and proceeded on down to Joseph’s room to see how he was.  I found him and Tabby both on his bed, Joseph wrapped in his fleece Dalmatian robe playing electronic Monopoly, and both of them staring wide-eyed at the door, Tabby with his tail unduly bushy on account of all the commotion I’d caused overhead.

The church bought a new piano.  It’s a Boston, a brand of piano made in Japan by the same company that makes Steinway, considered one of the world’s best.  The piano is a 7’3”, eleven inches longer than the old one, and is shiny ebony.  It’s truly a beautiful piano.

Teddy and Amy came after church.  Amy played the piano and Teddy played his trombone--but I hadn’t yet tuned the strings Larry replaced the previous night.  It wasn’t long before Amy found a badly out-of-tune note.  I went and tuned it before it caused permanent damage to our ears.  My piano really needs a thorough tuning.

Hannah came visiting after church while I was cutting out Caleb’s and Aaron’s shirts.  She started crocheting a scalloped ruffle on the bottom of the dress Amy made, for which I sewed the pale yellow dress with all that lace.

Thursday, I sewed Aaron’s shirt.  It’s cute, but the sleeves look entirely too short.  Hopefully, it’s just an optical illusion caused by the length of the shirt, the oversized hanger that makes the sleeves stick straight out, or both.

Lydia went to a classmate’s birthday party after school.  She gave him a set of Matchbox cars...but I think she came home with more than she took:  a box of chocolate chip cookie mix, a caramel apple with frosting and chocolate drizzled on top, and a box of Biscotti--Italian cookies.  Biscotti is dried toast with chocolate spread on top.

That evening, I was vacuuming the rugs in the living room when suddenly the vacuum smelt of burnt rubber and sent up a cloud of black smoke.  Now, I admit, I was going at it tooth and nail, skidding around corners with verve, accelerating with vigor, and reversing with vim; but that’s no reason for the apparatus to behave thus, now is it?  I turned the vacuum over and stared at its underneath side blankly, holding my nose.  I quit, leaving everything in a mess, and the vacuum upside down.

Let de oder feller do it.

          Friday I ignored the living room and sewed most of Caleb’s shirt.  Caleb had not known I was making Aaron one to match his, and when he spotted Aaron’s little shirt hanging in the kitchen, his face was a study in quick dismay that I had sewn his shirt too small, and then sudden delight when it dawned on him that I had doubtless made his little nephew a matching shirt.
 

That evening, we went to Lawrence and Norma’s house.  They had invited us out for supper--pizza and salad, with either Mississippi mud bars or toffee bars for dessert.

When we returned home, Larry, evidently noticing the half-swept state of the living room, took a look at the vacuum, extracting a large sliver of wood from it that had doubtless blocked the roller from its rotation.  The rugs that I’d finished were still rolled up in the hallway, and the living room floor badly needed to be swept.  Caleb put his hand to it, but when he sweeps, the dirt has a habit of flying into the stratosphere and then, after he departs, settling right back down where it used to be, bringing companion dirt particles down with it, so that when he is done, the dirt is deeper than it was at the first.

Teddy is building an oak hope chest for Amy; it is nearly done now.

Saturday, Lydia made chocolate chip cookies with her box mix, adding another batch from scratch since the box mix only made 18 cookies.  Not having any more chocolate chips, I poured Reese’s Pieces into the batter.

Caleb, drooling over the bowl, said, “I could just gobble up all that cookie dough!”

Victoria agreed.  “Yes!  I could eat up all that cookie oil, too!”

Early that afternoon, I finished Caleb’s shirt.  It’s too big.  I declare!  Lately I can’t make anything to fit the person for whom I made it to save my life.  He likes it, even so.  I started sewing Victoria’s dress, and am more than half done now.

In the meanwhile, Larry finished the go-cart.  Joseph tried it out in the alley.  It sounds terribly loud for a residential neighborhood, if you ask me.  Larry used a snowblower motor on it...and you know how loud those things are.  Our neighbors generally make use of them very early in the morning when you are trying to sleep; do yours do the same?  Larry must have thought it was loud, too, because he soon took the kids off to Bradshaw Park, which is on the west edge of town, to ride it.  I would have gone along with the camcorder, but the sun was nearly down; so I stayed home and sewed.

Later, while Larry cut Teddy and Joseph’s hair, I went to the store.  He was still chopping away when I got home.  I made raspberry jello, and put frozen raspberries and frozen blueberries into it.  The blueberries sink to the bottom, the raspberries float.

Today Caleb was sick, having a bad asthma attack.  He’d begun having troubles last night, and Teddy told me he’d taken the nebulizer downstairs for Caleb to have a treatment at 5:00 a.m.  That, so Caleb wouldn’t have to walk up the stairs, which always totally winds him when he is having problems breathing.  Later in the morning, I thought I’d better take him to the hospital.  I called David City.  The doctor on call was still in church, but would be out shortly.  I went downstairs and got Caleb’s clothes, and he got dressed in my room.  Just that exertion left him clear out of air and fighting for the next breath.  I decided we shouldn’t go all the way to David City, and we rushed off to the Columbus Hospital.

We got there at 11:00, and they didn’t do a blame thing for Caleb until ten after twelve, at which time they finally gave him a treatment with a nebulizer.  Well, that is, they did do a lot of paperwork, take his temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen levels, and several nurses and a doctor listened earnestly to his lungs.  But they did nothing that would actually improve his health for an hour and ten minutes.

The doctor was a lady who told me she had eight children.  She did not look like a doctor one little bit; on the contrary, she looked like she had only just finished milking the goats.  Or cleaning out the horse stalls.  Goodness, some people can be soooo rough! -- and that, with a child who is already in pain and misery.  She took a throat culture, and hurt his throat so badly that it still hurts tonight.  Dr. Luckey can do it with the child hardly knowing he did anything.  This lady doctor was ever so nice to us--but I’ll bet even the goats maaaa in alarm when they see her coming.

A while later, someone gave Caleb a shot...decodron, I think?  Hannah used to get shots of Prednizone, which caused her heart to race and her chest to burn.  Both medications are steroids, but the latter is not nearly so hard on people, especially children.  I guess we should be thankful that treatment for asthma has improved so much, and is still improving, quite rapidly, actually.  They took X-rays of Caleb’s chest, and by that time, the treatment and the shot he’d had were beginning to help him a bit.  I could hear him back in the X-ray room giggling, because the man was showing him what his insides look like on the computer screen.  The lady there gave him a fat yellow pen with a round smiley-face on top and jointed arms on the sides.  At the back are a couple of buttons that, when pushed, bring the arms up in boxing motions.  A pretty nifty pen--but it doesn’t write worth a hoot.

Later, Teddy told Caleb that he really liked his new pen, and that he himself was planning to get sick and go to the hospital, so that he could get one of those pens, too.  After the X-ray, we went back to the little emergency examining room and waited...and waited...and waited...

Caleb had had no breakfast, and he was not feeling well, partly just because he was getting hungry and feeling weak.  I went to tell someone he needed to eat, and a nurse brought some juice for him.  Just as she and the doctor came into the room, Caleb really did get sick.  But after that, he drank a little carton of apple juice and a little carton of grape juice, and felt slightly better.  The nurse had been planning to bring him some crackers, but upon learning that he had just been sick, she left off the crackers.

Aauugghh!...haven’t they ever noticed that crackers often help sick people, whereas juice may or may not stay down?!  Good heavens.  And they call themselves nurses.

Later that day, Larry bought a box of crackers, and they not only stayed down, but also helped Caleb feel better.

The doctor told me that Caleb’s X-rays showed he had pneumonia.  She wrote a prescription for an expensive antibiotic, a special kind he must have because he is allergic to Amoxicillin.  She also wrote a prescription for Cheratussin, an expensive cough syrup for which there is not yet a generic brand, same as the antibiotic.  

One nurse gave us a gadget called a Peak Flow Meter, used for measuring peak expiratory flow, which is a good indicator of lung function.  According to the graph, a person of Caleb’s size should be able to blow 267 liters of air per minute.  Caleb could barely do 50, and the nurse, thinking he wasn’t doing it right, had him taking big breaths and blowing into the device until I thought he was going to faint.  She finally decided that that really was the best he could do, and wrote it down.

Everyone treated us wonderfully, although their dilly-dallying and lack of urgency nearly drove me to distraction.

When we returned home, Teddy, Amy, and Hannah were here for dinner, Bobby having stayed home with Aaron, who still has a fever and the flu.  Keith and Esther, who were bringing the roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, and onions, weren’t here yet.  I told everyone to please remind me the next time someone needed to go to the hospital fast that they would get help quicker if we went to David City, in spite of the thirty-minute drive, than if we went to Columbus Hospital, which is only a two-minute drive.

After ensconcing Caleb in the recliner with a colorful afghan over him, I took his prescriptions to Walgreens.  I got some Kaopectate for Aaron and some Joint-Ritis for me.  Beside the checkout stand was a display rack full of little stuffed and bean-filled toys--a cheaper version of beanie babies.  I spotted a small orca, just like the bigger one we got from the Goodwill in Grand Island, which Victoria later claimed.  I had to get it, of course; and then I wound up getting a panda bear, an otter, a black bear with the characteristic brown paws and nose, and a raccoon.  Bringing them home, I tossed them onto Caleb’s lap and informed him that those quadruplets wanted to come home with me.

He promptly told Hester and Lydia they could pick out one each...but they, after playing with a couple of bears for a minute or two, gave them back, telling their little brother that the animals were his.

Soon Keith and Esther arrived with the food, and we ate dinner.  I gave Caleb some jello, but it didn’t stay down long.

When we were done eating, Keith filled bowls with food for Bobby--lots and lots and lots of food--and put them into a box that had held the ReLiv products Keith and Esther sell.  Hannah put the Kaopectate into it, too, and Larry taped it shut with duct tape.

When Hannah took it home, Bobby, who hasn’t much use for those Cure-Everything-Under-the-Sun homogeneous compounds, took one look at the box and groaned, “Oh, no.”  haha

I imagine he got over his dismay quickly upon opening the box, however.

Keith gave us a couple of cans of ReLiv for children, especially for Caleb.  The stuff is chock-full of vitamins and minerals, and would be good for anyone, and certainly wouldn’t do them any harm.  Those who market the stuff claim it will cure asthma, but I know better than that.  The supplement comes in a powdered form, and can be mixed with either water or milk.  The cans Keith gave Caleb are vanilla flavored; chocolate is also available.  Keith mixed some for Caleb, and Caleb tried it.  He liked it, but he didn’t feel well enough to drink all eight ounces, so Victoria gladly finished the last four ounces.  I sipped it, and it is good.

After dinner, we went back to Walgreens to get the medicine for Caleb.  We then stopped at Wal-Mart to get new school shoes for Hester, because I’d only just noticed that hers were cracked clear through the sole.  We made one more stop at another drug store to get an antacid for Joseph.

Tonight Caleb’s breathing is still labored, but he is better, I believe.  Aacchh, what scary times asthma provides us!  He is sleeping in the recliner again, since he can breathe easier when he is not lying flat.

Larry, poor man, having been deprived of his recliner, is crumpled into the large easy chair on the other side of the room, and because of his collapsed state is making more noise with his breathing than is Caleb.  I think I must usher him off to bed now and no later, or he will soon be completely incapable of modifying his contorted configuration, and will go about looking altogetherly like a pretzel for the rest of his natural life, which would be a grave inequity, on account of the fact that he is in said locus for two reasons:  1) he generously relinquished his chair to his son with neither thought nor inclination for remuneration; and 2) he is only in this non-reclining chair, as opposed to his bed, because he likes to stay near me.

Therefore, so as not to be responsible for any paralysis that he might incur from his incommodious orientation, I shall bid you adieu and go try my hand at rousing my husband.

P.S.:  Anybody have a skid-loader handy?