So we have been under a quarantine in the Rich house since we got home from vacation. Sunday morning as we were heading to church, Josiah started to act kind of funny like he was tired. By the time we got to church he was burning up and sickly. We stayed long enough to complete an interview they did with us regarding our adoption process and then I turned right back around and took him home. When we got home he was in a sleepy delirium, asking when he could go back to church. His temperature was 102.7. I gave him some Tylenol and cuddled with him on the couch while we watched his PBS favorites. By lunch time his temperature had only dropped to 102, so I was trying to decide if his fever would have been raging or the Tylenol didn't really work well for him. I took his temperature mid-afternoon nap and it was 102.7 again. I decided to let him sleep for the remaining hour and give him Ibuprofen once he woke up. One hour later he woke up and I promptly took his temperature...which was 105.3. I think this is where I calmly announced to Jonathan in a phone call, "I probably should be panicking and rushing to the ER, but instead..." I gave him the ibuprofen, a glass of ice water, put him in a tepid bath against his will, and waited to see what would happen in 30 minutes. I promise I vowed to head to the hospital if there wasn't significant change by that time; however, after 30 minutes his temperature was 102.9, and after an hour it was 102.0.
When our fabulous physician returned our Sunday afternoon phone call (because we always manage to get sick in the middle of the night or on the weekend), she told me two things: 1) I have an impressive panic threshold and 2) Josiah must have a really great seizure threshold. She said if that didn't make him seize she didn't know what would. I don't know that is a characteristic to be proud of, but considering I personally had seizures as a toddler, I do take it as a victory. Anyway, we concocted a plan of ibuprofen management since Josiah was acting fine, playing, eating, drinking, and urinating. His fever never broke 103 again, but we had two days of fever with no other symptoms. My mom could hardly believe the energy he had to play just as usual while he toasted away at 102.4. It's true; he really didn't act different. On day 3 the fever was gone but a rash spread down his thighs and in his mouth, making it hard for him to eat. We went to the doctor. She thought it looked viral and the strep test was negative, but a throat culture came back positive for strep. By the time the culture came back the next day, Josiah was 100% normal again. He ate without problem, his rash was faded, and he didn't have a fever. We were a little puzzled but opted for the antibiotics just to be safe. No need to ruin my child's heart valves with rhuematic fever.
Then...Wednesday morning came and Jonathan was running a high fever. He is on high-power antibiotics that make it virtually impossible for strep to grow, offering evidence for a virus instead. We are still waiting on his throat culture to come back, but his symptoms have mimicked Josiah's to the tee. It has led our physician to believe that Josiah managed to get both the virus and strep, but this part is viral. What a week it has been!
In other Josiah news...
He went to visit Noni and PawPaw for a couple of days while I worked and Jonathan was laid out on his own sickbed. At bedtime Josiah started screaming only to very quickly pause and announce to my mother, "If I cry real loud Paw Paw come and sing 'Yes, Jesus.'" Then he proceeded to start screaming at the top of his lungs again. Really? What a schemer.
Last night Josiah walked into the bathroom and got too quiet. After he didn't respond to my request to come out I asked what he was doing. He announced, "I just cleaning the house, Mama...just cleaning the house." I walked in to see what "cleaning the house" entailed. He was standing on the countertop spraying a water bottle at the mirror over and over again. The mirror was soaked and dripping onto the counter. I motioned for Jonathan just in time for Josiah to demonstrate the next step, self-described as "and then wipe it all around." This is where he took his dirty little hand and smeared the water around on the mirror to perfection. And what do you think our response was? Of course nothing other than "thank you SO much for helping us clean the help. We really appreciate your help! Now get down." Now...I will have to get to that mirror sometime today...
This morning Josiah was throwing a fit over who-knows-what. After a few minutes we crawled up on the bed together and he held his finger out with a booger on it. He dunked it in his mouth, and I promptly informed him we don't eat boogers. He pulled it back out and presented it to me, saying, "Here go, Mama." I declined such a sweet offer and instructed him to go put it in the trash. He wiped it around for a minute as he contemplated pausing his life for a trip to the trash can before finally concluding, "I put it back" and shoved his finger back into his nose.
No news on completing our home study. Our FBI background checks aren't back yet. We sent them off 7.5 weeks ago, and we have been told the wait time is 8-10. Hopefully we will be able to wrap everything up in the next couple of weeks and officially be waiting to be chosen as the family for our new baby! This waiting process has gone quickly, but I occasionally find myself anxious to speed things up. I am learning new things about patience and trust. I am trusting that the Lord has and is going before us, and it comforts me to think of our wait being on His timing for our family instead of a series of events constructed by man. We know that it is truly divine intervention that will bring our family into its next step. I remind myself that even if we got "paper pregnant" the day we turned in our first papers, our baby wouldn't come home until November. That makes the "process" seem a little less daunting. It's hard to believe the wait could be over before then, since we don't see the physical, growing evidence each day; however, we welcome it and ask the Lord to hasten the day our new baby comes home.
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