He's Happy Again!

Just could not stop laughing at me last night.

He's back.  My happy, playful, silly bug is back.  We've seen glimpses of him, but for more than a month now, that was all.  Brief signs of the child we know and love so much.

This week, we've made some medication changes, tweaked some other things like feeding schedules, had a follow-up appointment with cardiology.  But I think the biggest change was unscheduling an asthma med.  His new heart med can cause bronchospasms, so we've been pre-medicating to avoid those.  But the albuterol (asthma med) can also cause a high heart rate.  It got to the point where he didn't sleep for more than an hour or two at a time, ever.  It's hard to do much of anything when you're that tired.

One of his 15 minutes sleeps.

And I knew I was tired.  On top of everything else, I covered three out of six nights last week.  Plus another child's bus had a (minor) accident coming home from school.  There was another crisis that came to a head.  Plus my right arm has gotten to the point where I can barely use it again.  (can I say typing one-handed is pretty darn slow?  We won't talk about all the typos.  I hope I'm catching most of them.)

Then wild man who should have still been sleeping.

That's how my week started off.  Lots and lots of worries, not much sleep, and was this the way things were going to have to be?

Was this the beginning of a more permanent decline?

I held my own breath as I made the decision to stop the pre-medication, hoping it wouldn't make his breathing worse, and that we could respond in time if it did.

Actually really relaxing, for the first time
in way too long.

Not only did it not make it worse, he slept from 2 pm Monday until 2 am Tuesday, woke for about 30 minutes, and then slept until time to leave.  He napped more Tuesday and yesterday more than usual, but again, it was peaceful, not restless.  And he's back to his active, happy, teasing self.

And me?  Yesterday when he went to school, I went back to bed and didn't get up for six hours, that after sleeping for over eight the night before, and I was still more than ready for sleep by bedtime last night.  I hadn't realized the extent of the emotional drain on my body.  But things are really looking up on all fronts.  I can feel the stress leaving.  We can do this.  We can do hard things.  Just not all the time.  And I think (I hope) we might be getting a breather.

"There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest.

Use both and overlook neither."

 Alan Cohen