We’re backing up a little to before Thanksgiving…but some posts just can’t wait. Thanks to everyone for their sympathy after losing our wonderful Cleopatra. We buried her this weekend at my parent’s farm. It’s still very sad here…but we’re slowly adjusting to her not being here, and knowing she’s not in pain anymore certainly helps.

We’ve certainly had a couple of weeks very full of surprises in our house. Monday of Thanksgiving week, Ellie woke up with a cough. I, of course, thought nothing of it because who’s kid hasn’t had a cough or runny nose since birth? I thought it was one more cold we’d have to deal with.

Nathan’s parents were here all day on Monday watching the kids while I ran some errands and did a little Christmas shopping, and she seemed fine, other than this cough.  Monday night, while I worked, Nathan, the kids, and his parents went out for dinner, after which Ellie threw up…three times…in daddy’s car.

At this point, we were thinking Thanksgiving probably wasn’t going to happen for us. We were supposed to travel to my parent’s house, but thinking it was the flu, were expecting it to hit Evan around Wednesday, putting us at home for the holiday.

Monday night was a night of little sleep here. Ellie was up every hour thinking she was going to be sick, but never was, and we noticed somewhere around midnight that she was wheezing some with her breathing. I still didn’t think much of it, I just told Nathan we should probably watch that.

By Tuesday morning when she got up, her little face was pale, and she had dark blue circles under her eyes, and the poor thing didn’t want to do anything…eat, walk, sit up on the couch, nothing. So, I took her to the doctor, who sent us to the ER after a couple of nebulizer treatments to help her breathe better.

They started her on an IV for fluids, and some oxygen.

She looked so tiny in this big bed, and with all the tubes everywhere. She really did quite well with the IV, the poor thing just kept asking me when they could take it out.

She had to have a chest x-ray, and was actually pretty excited to take a ride in a wheelchair…but I guess even riding in a wheelchair when you feel icky isn’t all that great. (or maybe it was the fact that I was taking a picture of her that she didn’t like…)

After the chest x-ray came back, they determined she had pneumonia in both lungs. Poor thing…no wonder she couldn’t breathe very well.

She had to stay overnight…with that darn IV still attached…for some steroids and antibiotics, and more oxygen.

She chose daddy to stay with her overnight in the hospital, and I’m thinking they had a pretty good time. Our sitter came to visit and brought her a coloring book and new crayons, and her daughter knitted her a small purse and it had some bracelets in it for her. She got to order her own food, and eat it while sitting in her bed…and she got to watch Sponge Bob…for the first, and hopefully only time in her life.

I think she wanted to stay there forever.

She didn’t get out of the hospital until Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving), around 4 p.m. and they told her she needed to stay calm for a couple days so she’d get her strength back, so no big family Thanksgiving for her.

Nathan stayed home with her and they had an Ellie day. They had homemade calzones for Thanksgiving lunch, and Waffles for dinner, and they did whatever she wanted that day.

She did get to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house on Friday night, and stay until Sunday…so she didn’t miss out on the whole weekend…but we did have to remind her several times to calm down and stop running.

An unexpected start to the Thanksgiving weekend for sure…but to look at her even just a couple days later…you’d never know she was sick at all…