When it goes Bad....

It really goes bad. Rewind to Friday. Everything went as planned. We had loaded up the camper on Thursday night so pretty much everything was ready to go. I spent most of the day tying up loose ends around the house and loading up last minute things. The King got home even earlier than we had originally planned and by 5:30 we were on the road.

The kids were excited. Chiggie was even singing ' On the road again.' We made it there in one piece and had no trouble setting up camp. It was around 8 pm when we started dinner and then finished the night off roasting marshmallows by the fire. The weather was fabulous. Just cool enough, but not too cold.

We were just getting ready to head into the camper for the night when Chiggie started complaining of not feeling well. She said her throat burned and she felt nauseous. I didn't panic at all. It was late, she does have some acid reflux issues, I figured some rest would do us all some good. I scoured the campground looking for someone who had some Tums with no luck. We finally called it a night around 11pm. We never slept.

By 1 am she had vomited, next to the bag I had laid out. I got up and started bagging up dirty laundry and scrubbing any surfaces that had been tarnished. I was actually a bit relieved. Normally with acid reflux, if she vomits it's pretty much over. We all laid back down and I prayed for some sleep. At this point the babies were riled up and I was praising God that we were not in a tent.

About an hour later she was moaning again. This time complaining of jaw and throat pain. I dutifully got out the flashlight and took a look. Her throat looked a little red...maybe. But I did see that she was cutting a new molar. Once again I was relieved, just a new tooth. 2 Tsp's of Tylenol later and my head was back on the pillow. 'This is all going to be worth it,' I thought, I wanted this little camping trip to go good so badly.

The rest of the night was awful. Crying, moaning, subsequent doses of Tylenol. It was completely surreal. Still I thought, morning will come and this will get better. The second I saw light coming through the window I declared it time to rise and shine. It was before 6am. We got everything cleaned up and breakfast going. Chiggie seemed to perk up a little bit. I wondered if it had just been a rough night since there didn't seem to be a specific complaint.

After breakfast we all went fishing. Tea fished while Chiggie climbed rocks and just played. I really started to relax, everything was going to be okay. At this point Midge lost her footing on a rock and face planted skinning basically her whole face. There wasn't much blood, just a big scrape. She didn't cry much, but I was mortified. We waited a bit longer, and having no luck with the fishing decided to head back to camp for a bit. As we rounded everybody up we noticed a large amount of rust colored fluid in and around Chiggie's right ear. Ummmm uh oh.

I asked her if her ear hurt and she said not so much anymore. Nice. She explained that her ear had gotten the hiccups and it hurt really bad. Then there was this big pop and then it didn't hurt anymore. I felt awful. We went back to camp, gave her more Tylenol and contemplated our options. Should we take her to a nearby ER? She seemed okay at the time, probably not an emergency per se. Should we load up and go home? We hadn't even been there 24 hours. We finally decided to wait things out a bit. We made out the bed in the camper and she took a lengthy nap. When she woke up she still felt pretty good and played for while at the playground. I put some cotton in her ear to keep it clean and dry.

The rest of the day was long. Everyone was tired. Exhausted really. She didn't feel like going back down to the lake so the King took Tea and we stayed back at the camper. I felt so sorry for her. She really had been looking forward to this trip and everything we planned to do. I was overly tired and emotional at this point and felt like bawling. I think it was only about 3pm. The afternoon and evening drug on almost unbearably. She had ups and downs. I rubbed her back and we talked about her birthday coming up and all the fun things that we would do this summer.

Tea and the King got back, still no fish. Tea was very disappointed. We had dinner in the camper because Chiggie didn't feel like going out. By late evening she was willing to venture out and have another fire. They burned, I mean roasted marshmallows and enjoyed catching them on fire and then laughing hysterically. By about 8:30pm I could barely see through the slits that were my eyesockets and broke down camp and headed inside. The girls calmed down very easily, I dosed Chiggie up again, and everyone fell asleep. That night was scary.

Chiggie was so hot to the touch I couldn't believe it. Even with the medicine. I used cool wet papertowels in an attempt to get her body temperature under control. She was talking in her sleep obviously having nightmares. I couldn't sleep because I was afraid she would have a seizure. Once again as soon as we saw the light of day we were up. We made her comfortable on the couch while we got everything loaded up. We were obviously leaving. Tea cried. She was disappointed, she really wanted to catch a fish.

We were on the way home by 8 am. Everyone but the King slept almost the whole ride home. He thankfully was able to stay awake for the drive. The instant we got home I called Doc's on Call and set up an appointment. I got her showered and in clean clothes. I also gave her some Ibuprofen to control the fever and inflamation. By the time we headed to the Office she actually looked much better. Thankfully we saw an excellent doctor. She was thorough and made Chiggie feel very comfortable. We got a pretty obvious diagnosis. A ruptured ear drum. She cultured the fluid to make sure there is no underlying infection and prescribed two different antibiotics. One liquid and one in drop form. She'll follow up with her pediatrician to check the ear and go over the results of the culture later in the week.

Now she has had a dose of both antibiotics and is resting comfortably. The Ibuprofen is working for pain control, but it only lasts for so long. We're glad to be home and looking forward to a redo here in the next couple of weeks. I will post a few pictures (I really didn't get many) when my head doesn't hurt so bad.