Home Sweet Home

We are home from the hospital and it feels like we’ve been gone an eternity.  Nasty mac ‘n cheese for every meal, room/bed confinement, poking, prodding, and even forcefully and repeatedly sticking things in Alexa’s precious little privates… Hospitals definitely have similar qualities to prisons.

WTF Happened, you ask?  Well, Alexa fell very ill this past week while George was in Europe.  After a few days home alone with Alexa’s scary high fevers and a few trips to her Pediatrician, she and I ended up in the hospital under unfavorable, yet suspected suspicions.  After more invasive caths, it has been determined that in fact Alexa has another severe kidney infection.  George flew back into town last night and met us at the hospital.  Presumably this kidney infection is bacteria introduced from her awful cath VUR scan tests earlier this month, but we don’t know yet for sure.  She’s had a few doses of IV antibiotics and feeling much better now.  The sleepless nights were exaggerated by our poor little 2 year old roommate very ill with some kind of respiratory thing, the constant vital sign checks to both girls, the super uncomfortable chairs George and I attempted to sleep on, and our roommate’s guardian’s horribly loud snoring.  Yes, we all had quite a rough night. Alexa “slept” on my chest the whole night.  She is very traumatized with this whole ordeal.  Thankfully, the hospital let us leave early and will call us in the morning to let us know what kind of bacteria the culture grew.  There is a possibility we could have to come back in for another dose or two of IV antibiotics on Sunday.  I pray that is not the case.

Thankfully Alexa is mostly in great spirits and is relatively quickly overcoming another severe kidney infection.  Unfortunately, however, this Hell is not over yet.  All this pain and torture has only resulted in more.  Her Urology Specialist is 99% sure he wants her to have surgery to correct her VUR and he wants her to undergo the surgery immediately, meaning within the next couple of weeks.  Enforcing the decision more, the specialist’s partner is 100% sure he wants her to have surgery immediately, meaning right now.  We have 8 days of the new antibiotic.  The Docs promise a decision before those 8 days are up.

8 days from now is November 28.  Our plans to surprise Christopher at his football playoff game November 30^th in Boston are now in question which is devastating for us since we never get to see Christopher and he is doing so amazing in football right now.  The 4^th of December, George is supposed to fly to Antigua for a week, then back home to us for a week, then off to the BVIs just before Christmas.  I’ve learned, the truth is, no matter what, there is never a good time to schedule ANYTHING in this yachtie lifestyle.  Of course, our children’s health is always priority.

Alexa is peacefully sleeping in her own bed now.  She is exhausted and asked to go to bed just after 6pm tonight.  After we had to pin her down to get her to take her new meds, she drank a big cup of vanilla almond milk and skeptically went to bed.  The whole thing is so heartbreaking.  I love and miss my baby.  I pray we aren’t breaking her spirit with all this.

George and I are exhausted too.  I am completely avoiding doing my Accounting midterm as well as my backed up graphic design work to write this blog while my handsome, Captain, (amateur Chef) hubby creates a masterpiece meal for the two of us.  My classes are now suffering, so looks like I will have my Master’s degree Spring time now instead of fall.  We are all a bit shook up at the moment and don’t really know what to make of all this.  Honestly, I am SCREAMING inside and really don’t know what to do with myself.  Thankfully we are home sweet home.

Co-sleeping

When George goes out of town, or even sometimes when he’s at home but vacant, I wish Alexa was snuggling up next to me in my big bed upstairs.  Lately I’ve considered buying bed rails and seeing if Alexa will sleep up there with me sometimes since she used to as an infant.  She’s so independent now and so happy in her own bed.  I miss my little peanut so much.  Is this normal?  Does anyone else feel like this?  I guess in our household the Mama has more separation anxiety than the baby.

We have so much to be thankful for. All of us.

It’s Sunday night.  Alexa is fast asleep after a day filled with swimming, football, outdoor adventures, books, and sticker fun.  I’m supposed to be working right now.  Ha!  Instead I am drinking a rather large glass of red wine, writing in my blog, trying to drown out my sorrows since George left the country this morning, yet again.  In typical Alyssa fashion, I let my stress and sadness get the best of me and become the culprit of bowing out on one of my most amazing girl friends night as we were supposed to attend the odd Roger Waters Pink Floyd the Wall Concert together.  She still went with another friend.  Glad she still enjoyed it, shame I missed it.  Funny enough, although it may look like quite the opposite at the moment, I’m actually looking forward to some time to myself this week.  I think I just needed today to be down.  Isn’t it okay to be down sometimes?  Contrary to most of my blog entries (I use my blog as an outlet), I tend to always try to keep busy or stay upbeat every day for me, for Alexa, for everyone, but maybe I deserve a day here and there to be sad.  Maybe I can even eat something bad when I’m sad like some salt and vinegar chips or something.  In the movies they eat ice cream.  As ironically as it sounds after mentioning my bowl of a glass of red wine and my random organic salt and vinegar chip fix, I am looking forward to a nice long week of veggie juice detox and full-on athletic training.  Oh and of course, as you know, coupled with loads of work, classes, bills, house work, and all the other day-to-day life shit we Americans attempt to cram into our lives.  If you know me at all and my packed ass schedule, you will be shocked to know I’ve been considering trying to squeeze in swimming lessons for Alexa (again), guitar lessons and French lessons for me, and even kite boarding lessons (something I’ve wanted to do since I was 25 years old).  My mother when she was visiting a few weeks ago said to me quite a few times how I need to stop always being in such a rush.  My life is always in such a rush, rushing to my next thing I’ve crammed into mine (and Alexa’s) busy ass day.  But that’s just it, besides a few things out of our control; this is mostly self inflicted stress.  I mean, it is so important to recognize how lucky we are to have our health, our youth (yes, that’s a state of mind), our family, and our friends.  I am grateful to have food on our plate and grateful for our jobs and our home.  There’s so much love surrounding our family (although our family is wide spread across the hemisphere at the moment) it would be selfish and disgraceful to constantly focus in on any of our petty superficial bullshit.  I know it is okay for me to deeply miss my husband in Amsterdam; my brother, niece, and nephew in Texas; my parents in Texas; my mother-in-law in New York; my beautiful daughters-in-law in London; my smart and talented son-in-law in Boston; and all my friends and family scattered about the world… but, thankfully, we are all connected through the amazing energy of love.  What if we were living in Haiti or New Orleans or Thailand when natural disasters hit and we lost each other and all that we knew of life?  What if we were “lower on the chain of life” as animals whose children are ripped away from them or homes are destroyed or lives are slaughtered for reasons of human entertainment or “gain” or land “development”?  What if.  We have so much to be thankful for.  All of us.

The Good, the Bad, and the Blessed

Good news, Alexa’s one side healed on its own.  Bad news, the other side has not improved at all and is still a severe grade 4 VUR.  Good news, doc is giving her 6 more months on daily antibiotics in the hopes something will change for the better.  Bad news, if there is still no change in 6 more months time, Alexa will need surgery.  Surgery at 24 months old.  I can’t bare to think about it.

Good news... most of our family and friends are healthy and we are blessed to be surrounded by so much love.

Butterfly Pumpkins

Imagine be forced to pin down your fully conscious, screaming and crying, 18 month old child motionless while a nurse shoves a long plastic tube up her urethra, fills her bladder with dyed liquid numerous times, and X-rays her for what seems like an eternity.  Actually, don’t try to imagine this scenario.  It is much to painful to even think about.  Absolute heartbreaking torture for our little one as well as for us, the parents forced to contribute to the suffering.  At one point, I couldn’t help but to yell at the radiologist “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HER?!?! SHE’S IN PAIN!!” and “CAN’T YOU JUST HURRY UP?!?!?”  Probably not good Alexa heard me freak out on the Doctor, but the whole experience was extremely upsetting for all involved.  Unfortunately, this is not the first time we’ve had to endure this pain and probably not the last.  According to the radiologist, her VUR condition is still very severe on her left side and although less severe on the right, the condition still exists on that side as well.  We will see her specialist next week to go over the results, but it’s not looking promising.

For the next few hours Alexa sporadically yelled out in pain, knees collapsing to the ground, every time she had to pee.  Although the catheter was removed, she was obviously still in massive amounts of pain as she clingged to me, digging her fingernails into my shoulders, trying to bear the agony.  It took everything for me to fight off tears and remain strong for her.

As the day went on, she began to feel better, thank God.  Later in the afternoon she felt well enough to help me carve a pumpkin.  Yes, I know we are a bit late for Halloween, but being in the yachting industry, Halloween time of the year is so hectic, we were lucky to even make it to one house trick-or-treating on the 31st.  Being that it is 5 days after Halloween, I lucked out on a delicious deal on a fantastically plump pumpkin from the farmers market.  The weather is amazing right now (high of 72 degrees and sunny), so we sat on the back terrace and carved a butterfly into the pumpkin.  And we scooped out all the seeds to make a fresh, baked pumpkin seed snack.

It’s another gorgeous, crisp, clear autumn day today in South Florida and we plan to make the most of it outdoors.  The goal is to live in the moment, show Alexa the time of her life, and not to think about the possibility of Alexa facing surgery in the near future to correct her VUR condition.  We are praying the specialist will deliver a more promising diagnosis when we see him next week.

Rainbows & Sunshine

After weeks of stress and chaos, I’m happy to post a blog full of rainbows and sunshine.  The 2010 FLIBS is officially over and was a success.  Rybovich Superyacht Marina and Shipyard, where my hubby and I both work, is beautifully busy all because my husband is THE MAN.  Caitlin is out of the hospital and feeling much better.  Most of her suspected ailments listed in my previous blogs were proven false, thank God, so now after one last healthy dose of IV antibiotics, she is happy and healthy and able to enjoy London once again and even a last trip to Amsterdam.  My mother has finally fully recovered as well.  Alexa loves school, is the star in her music class, and really loves this autumn pumpkin thing.  Autumn just happens to be my favorite season as well.  Although Halloween was rained out, Alexa was the most precious pink Pirate and got to trick or treat at one kick ass spooky house before it rained on our parade.  Alexa is full of “I love yous”, kisses, and hugs lately.  She’s so adorable!  It’s so nice to be able to spend time with my baby again.  She gets to enjoy her Daddy for another 9 days before he heads off to Amsterdam too.  Me… I’m gearing up to run another half marathon race with a yachtie mommy friend as well as enjoying a more manageable Graphic Design work load.  I started classes again last week.  They are difficult so far, but it will be so worth it to finally have an MBA this December.  Other than a few current unmentioned trails and tribulations, the Whitehouse family is full of rainbows and sunshine.

Alexa's Class Room - Halloween Dress Up day.  Alexa was a Dolphin's Cheerleader.

After weeks of being separated, Daddy surprised Alexa by Showing up for her School Costume Parade

Precious Pink Pirate heading out to trick-or-treat

Trick-or-treating at Kalea's house October 31.