By Monday, Adam's sore throat is not as sore but he gets the sniffy nose. Typical progression for him. But no fever and he's not feeling all that bad. But enter Elise. She is starting to sniffle too, throwing away Kleenex as if they grew on trees. There was a box of Kleenex lining the trash can looking as if they belonged back in the box. Seriously. One little wipe on the nose does not mean the Kleenex is used. Arggh. But again, I digress.
I tell Adam, "You are going to the concert whether or not you are sick. You can't miss it. No way". He agrees. Just get through Friday, I think to myself. After Friday, feel free to be sick. Please. God had mercy on us and Wednesday came and went, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. We made it. No worse the wear. By Christmas weekend, Adam is fine.
Elise being who she is with the chronic sinus issues begins to cough at night. Only at night. The cough lingers all week progressively getting worse. Which leads me to last night. If you follow me on Facebook, you know that Tony has been sanding, refinishing and painting new furniture for our little darling and started painting her room yesterday. Because the room was empty, Elise needed alternate sleeping arrangements. On her old mattress on our bedroom floor was the plan. Our plan. Not Elise's. God love her (and us, too!) she can be stubborn. Maybe it is typical little girl strong willed bent, or the second born temperament, but she is headstrong. And anything having to do with food or sleep can be an especially difficult issue to force. Trying to pacify her, we cajole her into obedience by saying she can sleep in our bed and we'll use a night light in our bathroom. Agreed.
Elise is tucked away into bed, fully medicated and quiet. Battle won. The next battle for me was deciding to up my sleep medicine that night. No small undertaking at this stage in the medication challenge. After my latest frustrating sleep study results, it is decided that I need to pursue resolution to this stubborn problem an entirely different direction with new meds. A gradual increase by 100 mg. per week for 6 weeks until my medicine reached the maximum dose of 600 mg. Sounds like a lot but for seizures (the true use of this drug) the medication is usually dosed at 1,500 to 2,000 mg., so my dose is actually quite small. However, with each 100 mg. dose it is reported dramatic day time sleepiness for the first two to three days of increase. Thus, the increments need to small and infrequent, and to this point was every Friday night so that if drowsiness was going to occur, it would be on a weekend when I had my husband for back up. Usually when the doctor has warned me of this grogginess (feels like a sleepy hang-over), it hits me like a mack truck. Making my final leap to maximum dosage was going to be the toughest and there really is no good time for it. Since Tony is home on vacation through Sunday it really needed to be now or never.
We hear her coughing in bed for about an hour and decide to up her medicine dose. This quieted her for about an hour, long enough for me to crawl into bed on the other side of her. What I didn't realize is that the previous hour would be the quietest of the night. No sooner am I tucked into bed next to her, groggy from my sleep meds, does she start snoring--and then coughing--snoring some more--coughing some more and just for a bonus, kicking me in the back at regular intervals. This was definitely not working for me. Not at all. After laying there for about an hour, watching the clock near 11 p.m. I leave the comfort of my own bed to lay on her crib-sized mattress on our floor. Maybe if I hadn't been so tired it would have occurred to me to move her onto the floor and for me to stay in the bed, but I was too tired to think clearly. Obviously. Maybe being a few feet away from her coughing would make it easier to sleep. You'd think anyway. Finally, midnight approaches and I ask for back up. Tony has wisely grabbed his pillow and a blanket and had been crashing on the couch. I don't know if it's because he saw me on her mattress or heard her coughing every 5.5 seconds but he was wise enough to sleep far, far away. He obediently comes upstairs to re-medicate her, probably bordering on a dose big enough for Adam, but we were desperate. Here is where True Love showed herself by Tony offering me the couch so that maybe I could get a few hour's sleep. The bad thing about sleep meds is that you have to sleep a minimum of 8 hours to not be groggy the whole next day. And with the risk of that anyway, today was not looking good.
The rest of the night I slept fitfully on the couch. Not that I am complaining; I'm not. I certainly had the better end of the deal. Poor Tony's been working his little heart out all week on Elise's room. He needed a good night's sleep more than me. But he also knows how I am when I'm extra sleep-deprived. Again, I'd say it's not pretty. My night's end came around 5:30 when I feel my precious little one tap me on the back. "Time to get up now, Mommy?". Back to bed, honey. It's still dark out. As far as I know she complied. Until 6 a.m. Repeat. Finally at 7 a.m. she made one last attempt to get up. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how she wasn't sleeping until 10 since she had been coughing all night, but here she was ready to start the day. Blindly, I turn the TV on for her and crawl back into my bed. Certainly not a finest Mommy moment but too tired to care. I vaguely remember mumbling something to Tony about her being awake. I'm not sure but I think he dozed back off. At some point though, he did get up with the kids while allowing me to sleep until 9. Come to find out she asked to sleep in her bed on the floor at some point during the night--or maybe it was during the early morning attempts at starting her day. Apparently Tony's sleep was not exactly quality. All I can say though is that I'll be glad to leave 2009 behind as long as I can leave behind our own version of musical beds and start fresh with 2010!
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