The End of Hell Week

It's really been a tough week.

Last weekend was the Storm. Aside from the weather, it was an ok weekend, mostly relaxing.

Monday night was Halloween. Not my favorite holiday, I hate all the candy, but the kids still enjoy it. David walks with Sofia, the boys go with the pack of neighborhood kids, I man the door at home. Sofia only made it to a few houses before she got too scared, so she and David came home.

And while he was home, we got The Call, that his grandmother, Toby, had died. So we dealt with that, told the boys about it when they came home. Micah, in his way, wanted to hear nothing else about it, and went to his room. Sam, in his way, stayed up stressing and fussing in our room far too late.

Tuesday, other than being sad about Grandma Toby, was actually an ok day. I taught Micah's class their first trope (Torah reading) lesson, and it went really well!

Wednesday was crazy. I took Sofia with me and drove Micah to school. David took Sam to the Ashland Middle School, for reading group. Sofia and I picked him up. David went to work for a few hours, so Sam and I fought about his Hebrew homework, and packed.

Left home around 11, got to New Britain a little early, and made our way to the cemetery. This is the place where all his relatives are buried, and unfortunately, we have been there a lot, but it's really a lovely place. And it was a beautiful day for a funeral - sunny and warmer.

CT is a wreck - trees down everywhere, and at that point, almost no one had power. And the cemetery was muddy. They had to bring the backhoe in to finish putting the dirt on the casket (in a Jewish funeral, usually the mourners and other attendees do all the shoveling of dirt, but it was just too wet).

We got a nice turn-out - a lot of the Long Island cousins, whom I really really like, came up for it, which was sweet of them. We went back to Grandma's house for shiva, so we got to visit people for a while. And just after most of them left to go to shul for the evening service, the power came back on!

We met them at shul (David had gone with his dad, and I had his mom), and then dropped Sam and Sofia at my sister's house, where my parents have been camped out all week (along with several other families!). Then we drove to NYC. (Micah, meanwhile, had a great time sleeping over with friends up here).

David and I were going to NYC to get his travel visa for India (he's going right after Thanksgiving). We didn't get to the hotel until after 10pm. In the morning, I stayed at the hotel for a leisurely breakfast while he went over to the Visa Center. He handed in his passport and all his paperwork and money, and then the guy said "ok, come back tomorrow at 5:30"! It was supposed to be same-day service, but they could not promise!

So we spent the whole day stressing about whether we would get his stuff back in time. And he needed his passport - right now (Saturday night) he's on a plane to Copenhagen.

We spent most of the day walking around the city. Meandering. Nothing really special, but it was nice. Found a good kosher Israeli place, for shwarma and schnitzel. Also had Tea and Scones at an Alice In Wonderland themed place. Very nice.

And luckily, the passport and visa DID make it through the system, so we were able to get them on Thursday evening. Got back in the car around 6:30. Headed back to my sister's house, stopped for a quick bit of dinner, and made it home by 11:15 (Micah was home with a sitter).

Done, right?

Nope.

Friday morning, Sam is sobbing and choking. His tonsils are completely swollen. I sent him back to sleep (that seemed to be what he needed more than anything else), and took Micah and Sofia off to school. Called pediatrician on the way home, and they said bring him in early.

So we saw one of the other peds, not our regular (but I trust all the docs in that office; don't necessarily like one of them but I do trust them). Dr. T. was quite alarmed, and thought it might be a peritonsular abscess. She booked us in to the Ear/Nose/Throat office - where we had all been patients back when the boys were little and had ear tubes and I got allergy shots.

Unfortunately, the pediatric ENT was not in, so we saw one of the other docs. And they couldn't take us until 2pm, so I spent a lot of frantic time trying to find someone to pick up Sofia from school. It was stressful. And I picked up Micah early (school ends at 2 on Fridays).

Anyway, the ENT did not think it was an abscess. Apparently, there are a lot of weird throat things that can happen with mono, so even though the quick-test for strep was negative, it's not totally ruled out. So the ENT said to have the pediatrician write scripts for a steroid and an antibiotic.

We went back to our pediatrician (we were supposed to be there for Micah's 10 year check up), and she wanted to know why the ENT couldn't write his own scrips! I think he was not used to dosing for pediatric patients. And she also agreed with her colleague that it looked more like an abscess, so we were stressed out for the past 24 hours, watching for symptoms or signs of improvement.

Fortunately, it does seem to be responding to the steroids. Whew! 'Cause the next step was the ER.

We went to our friends' house for Shabbat dinner, which was nice (especially nice since I did not have any food ready!), and slept late today. Except that there was a knock on the door at 8pm, UPS delivering a package for David for work. Which was also a stress-inducer, although we eventually realized it wasn't as bad as we thought (requests for information only).

David went to work, while I tried to get Sam to calm down. Eventually he did. The poor kid is frightened. And a drama king. But I had a serious talk with him about whether he really needed to go to the ER or not. We managed to avoid it.

He came with me to drive David to the Logan Express bus, and then go grocery shopping. I made a nice dinner for the kids - marinated salmon, pasta, broccoli - and we also got fixings for ice cream sundaes. YUM.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better... although my parents are coming to visit...hmmmm...