Let me start with the ups.
We love our new apartment. It is so much bigger and has more room for play and work. Now Andy doesn’t feel the need to go in to an office to get work done during the day, he has his own office here! Our building is not at the front anymore so all the crazy drivers don’t have to speed by which will make taking walks safer, once we start getting to do that regularly again. Our backdoor opens to the back of the complex and we are about 20 paces from the back of the Best Buy shopping center! Our upstairs neighbors are quiet and we are not surrounded by inconsiderate dog owners.
So as you see, now that we are here, there is so much to be grateful for and happy about.
Getting here was a whole other tale!!
I guess it all really started when the office took so long to get back to us on our approval. Sure we are in the same complex but due to the nature of our lease we have to be officially moved out and moved back in. Which means nothing more than tons of paperwork and a corporate approval. And the lady who handles it all in office is so nice. I adore her really, she’s a doll. And she did say she was sure we’d be approved. But until I got the call I was just not comfortable and wouldn’t commit to packing heavily. I was sorting and cleaning and freecycling. Mostly I was working on the kids’ birthday party too. Then the call of approval did come – 4 days before the scheduled move in.
I had already decided a few days before to go ahead and get serious. At least pack things we wouldn’t need immediately and if it came down to it we were moving no matter what, we’d just have to find something else. So my mom came over on the Monday before the move to keep kids out of my hair so I could get started. There’s so much to do when you have to take care of 2 small kids on a day to day basis and add to it, the packing and cleaning the old place, yeah, help needed.
Then the other strange thing was when I got the call of approval the lady mentioned we were set to move in on Friday. All the papers we had already signed had said Thursday the 15th. So that was confusing but would have been fine so I’d have an extra day. I figured I better go in there and talk to them though to be sure since we had already decided we needed to hire movers. The thing is, we had no one that could help us, Andy’s dad was out of town and his workout buddy works and goes to school all day, all my friends have small kids. We would also have had to rent a truck, hire some teenagers from our homeschool group to help move things and be a mother’s helper for me. By the time that was said and done we might as well have paid movers to do it all! So that was the plan, but we needed to know what day.
I went in and talked to the sweet guy that works out front in the office. He always lets me in on the drama going on around if I ask, and once gave Andrew a popsicle, so he’s definitely a buddy. 
I asked him which day and he was honestly surprised to hear that we were moving in this week at all! As far as he knew things hadn’t even been started on that unit! Um. Hmmm. We had a bit of an issue moving in here the first time too. We were set to pick up keys at 10 am and called them at 930 and they said they were still waiting on carpet cleaners. We had a home full of family helping us move, a 4 day old baby, and 3 trucks already packed up waiting to head out! We ended up moving in to an apartment with wet carpets and noisy fan to dry them. So we are already a little leery of them having things ready and when he said that I got nervous. but he talked to the manager and she said no problem Friday would be good to go.
OK, back to work! Packing sorting you know the drill. Then Wed morning Andy wakes up and says, Honey my throat hurts and I am so tired, I need to lay down. And he did. Like all day. I kept thinking, this couldn’t be the flu he doesn’t have a fever but he said he just felt like poop and was getting hot and cold flashes.
OK, starting to panic a little. I have so much left to pack, the movers are scheduled to be here Friday at 2 and this place has a long way to go!!
Then Thursday morning, fever hits. OMG. It’s the FLU!! No please! Andy was cold and hot and shaking and feverish and sweating buckets and down right miserable and completely immobile. Scared the daylights out of me actually. He managed to come out of it for a couple of hours that afternoon and help pack the kids’ toys while sitting down in their room.
It was a gorgeous day outside too. And as we all know the boys’ favorite thing in the world is going outside and how could I keep them cooped up all day? I figured a 30-45 minute fresh air and sunshine break was much needed, and me and the boys went out to check the mail and walk a bit. While I was out there I thought, hey let’s run by our new place and just see it! I did not expect to see it in the state I found it in. We came up to it from the back and saw the porch first, where there was toilet, outside. All the doors and windows were open so we could plainly see the whole living and front area had no floor and no sign of anyone working on it. It was about 3 pm and we were supposed to pick up our keys at 10 am the next day. uhoh, wet carpets all over again.
I was talking to my mom on the phone at the time and she suggested when we got home to call the office to be sure the place was ready. Well, when I told Andy about what I saw he got a burst of energy and called himself to be sure things would be in order. The manager actually met him over there and then met with her maintenance and then came back to our home to let us know it would be ready by noon the next day. Kind of cutting it close but hey, as long as it is ready. They were putting new carpet in too so no worries about having it cleaned!
I know they don’t want us seeing the place before it is ready, peeking at the man behind the curtain so to speak. It’s none of our business if they are still working until 2am to have it ready, as long as it is ready. It was just hard to have any faith in that moment seeing the floors missing a little over 12 hours before we were supposed to pick up our keys. And with the stress of Andy being ill, on top of it, I was super compounded. But so far everything was go!
Then Friday morning, Andy really scared me. He had hardly slept the night before. Tossed and turned and coughed all night. And that morning, the morning of the move, he was almost in tears from pain and discomfort. I still wasn’t ready for movers!! He had located enough energy the night before, some kind of adrenaline rush I think from dealing with the manager, to put most of our boxes into the living room, but there was still so much to do. And so much only Andy could do, like disconnecting our TV and game systems and taking his computer apart.
OK, so I needed help, but my mom had surgery on Thursday and couldn’t get out of bed either (and that went very well btw and she is doing beautifully!), much to her dismay I might add she wanted nothing more than to help me. But she sent me as many prayers as she could and they were answered in the form of Meemaw! I called Andy’s aunt Tressie. She was working Friday but I told her straight up I dont’ know what to do and didn’t know who else to call. I am scared to death for Andy and we have movers coming in 2 hours and I am not ready. She said she’d be over in the morning to help me tie it all up and offered to leave work early if need be.
So I felt relieved enough knowing help was coming the next day. I got Andy some advil, put on my mei tai and wrapped Paul T on my back and started loading the van with bags of clothes and linens and going back and forth to the new place with Paul on my back and Andrew in the front seat. I was mostly done by the time the movers arrived and Andy was able to stand and talk thanks to the power of ibuprofen.
The movers were awesome, fast and expensive but thank the Universe we had called them huh! I mean really. I don’t know what we would have done. So we got through that afternoon.
But can’t you just picture me driving with Paul T behind me and wearing him on my back while carrying 2 large black garbage bags full of clothes or tons of bags of trash out. I was a sight! At one point I was taking out the trash and some older kid walked by me, I had like 6 bags I was carrying total, of all sizes, and of course Paul T on my back and the kid goes “oh my god” and did a double take. Kind of made my day actually! Made me feel appreciated for my efforts. He did offer to help btw, good kid!
I honestly barely remember that night, I was so exhausted. Andrew had started to get feverish and act super tired right before the movers showed, so we were trying to monitor him and make sure he was taking fluids. I took a hot bath and tried to plan the next day. There was a lot left over there and almost all the cleaning left to do. I hardly slept that night. I got up at one point and unpacked a random bathroom box, I took Andrew’s temp a few times and it got up over 104 but he was sleeping soundly so I let him. He woke up super early to drink water and I figured he was doing well.
The next morning, Paul T and I met up with our angel Tressie and thanks to her, we filled both of our vehicles to the brim and got pretty much everything left in one trip. Our new living room was just full of piled high towers of boxes and Andrew was laid out on the couch carrying about a 104 and Andy was trying to take care of him best he could from the recliner carrying a 101! They were quite a sight. All I wanted to do was be able to sit with my boys and put wet rags on Andrew’s head and give him sips of water but the stuff had to get gotten.
We had decided our only hope was to sneak an extra day. We had asked for Saturday and the office said fine but we figured they were closed at the office on Sunday so we could sneak over there and finish the cleaning. And actually it was Tressie who talked me in to taking the rest of the day to take care of our new home and the guys.
We spent that afternoon getting boxes moved to the right rooms at least. It was a danger zone for Paul T everywhere so we had to safety the place up. Unpack enough to live. And still watch Andrew’s temp. he seemed to be drinking good but in actuality the cup he was using was not letting enough liquid out and so while it looked like he was taking sips, it was only a few drops at a time.
By 5pm, I broke down and gave him Tylenol since we’d already done a couple of baths but his fever stayed at 104 and even above. I was freaking out! I called my mom and she was scared too and told us to go to the ER to get him some IV fluids. I had gotten clothes out for the kids and gotten myself dressed and Andy, who was starting to feel a lot better, said wait, what’s the real issue here. Sure his fever is high, but Andrew has only had a fever one other time really and it was very high then too, like 104, so he is a high fever kid. And we’re relying on one old Vicks electronic underarm reading. And we know he’s not getting enough fluids. What can we do here? Let’s not risk Paul T and exposing Andrew to any other infections floating around in ERs right now before we try something else. He is still answering us, still looking us in the eye, still even giving thumbs ups! He is sick and down but he is not out of it.
I was bawling. The fear that has been put in me from the news outlets and other people I know talking about “all the deaths from this flu” had gotten in my head and I was in a panic. I was thinking about how if anything happens to Andrew, his last week was spent not playing with mommy like usual but waiting around while I packed and cleaned. I was in a right state I tell you!
Andy jumped up and went to the store to get some other options for fluids, juice boxes and a new cup that worked better, and a different thermometer.
It worked, we ended up skipping the ER this time around. With some fun games that Daddy came up with Andrew started drinking fluids regularly and was peeing again. I don’t know if his fever really came down by more than one degree that night. We used the old thermometer, the new one and another one we found and got different readings on each one each off from the other by a whole degree. And one armpit to the other would be a degree difference and one ear to the other would as well.
I finally asked Andy, “are we just trying desperately to control something because we have no control over this illness? Are we taking his temperature over and over again to feel like we are in control of something? But really all we’re doing is freaking ourselves out with a number and not listening to our gut?” He totally thought yes! He was the one listening to his gut. He reminded me that Andrew was still being himself, he was not passing out, he was not have seizures and he was trying to drink when we asked him to, the problem had been that straw cup was hard to use and he was weak and not getting enough water through. Once we gave him a juice box he sucked almost the whole thing down like he’d been so thirsty!
We didnt’ take his temperature again after that discussion. And the next day I think he still had a low one that was lingering but by bedtime Sunday night it was gone and he hasn’t had another one. When his fever was so high, whether it was truly 104-105 or just 102-103, his skin almost burnt my hands. he was so hot that picking him up to take him to the bathroom was uncomfortable for me because he burned me! I could tell for sure when it was gone simply by touching him. And doing it that way kept me in touch with my intuition instead of worrying over what the number reading was. Which may or may not have been what it said, you know. Taking the temp only added to my stress. Knowing when to take my child to the hospital from now on will be based on my and his father’s analysis of his overall behavior and not a number.
It was a hard scary decision in the moment not to go but to follow our hearts and try it on our own, but we did it and it turned out to be the right thing. I have no doubts that if the time came that did warrant a trip to a doc or ER we would know it too because we are learning to listen.
Well, anyway, back to the fact that we were still in the middle of moving and unpacking and cleaning our old place! lol
I was planning to sneak back over Sunday and finish the cleaning and grab the last few items, mostly cleaning supplies when I learned that the Angel of Tressie had snuck back over there the day before and done a lot of the cleaning for me! What a blessing she is! So all that was left was the picking up, the floors and a small bit in the bathroom. I did all the mopping and Andy had enough energy throughout the day to steam clean 2 of the 3 rooms in 2 separate visits. We had done the other room before we moved and although we had planned to do it again under the circumstances, I think it was alright to leave it. As it was, Andy exhausted himself and could barely sit up for long the whole rest of the day.
It is now, what? Friday? The move officially happened a week ago and I did unpack my last box today and passed on the boxes to the next person in need. I still have a lot to put away and organize, but our laundry is caught up, we’re back in cloth diapers on the baby, Andy is at work at his desk right now. Andrew is still extra tired, but the up side to that is he is taking naps again! Something I think he should have been doing anyway quite frankly. He’s a busy boy and needs his rest.
But I am so glad to have my Andrew and my husband back. I missed them so much when they were so sick they couldn’t get up.
Paul T and I are still bug free so far and I hope we stay that way. The last time we all had the gunky nose it hung around Paul the longest and I’d hate to face the flu with him, h1n1 or any type. I btw, really do believe this was the h1n1, it is a bit premature for the flu season and Andrew’s temp was very unaffected by Tylenol. But we will never know for sure, only guess.
If you have read through this this long, you have more time on your hands than I do! It’s taken me about 5 or 6 sittings to get it all out! And I promise you there will be pictures and videos to come. We love you all!