Spring is in the air.....lalala (finally!!)

We've finally had a touch of spring, on Friday the temperature is even supposed to reach 17 C.

I can't wait until the thick winter coats and stockings are no longer necessary. I have high hopes for this summer so it just better be a warm one! In the meantime the preparations for easter have begun!

Will I ever learn?

We've had to start Ciara on the eyedrops! Thankfully the infection has barely started so it won't turn as gunky as Enya's but I really thought Ciara had managed to escape this one.

We had this problem in the NICU as well, if we commented that something was going well, it would come back and bite us in the butt!

Lesson now will be learnt. Keep my mouth shut!

So far so good

I wish I had lots of new stuff to write about but we have been in hiding pretty much the last week as we don't want to spread our germs around (what can I say we're selfish that way).

Thankfully it looks like our sick period coming to an end and so long as Ciara doesn't develop the eye infection (which is looking increasingly unlikely) we will have a jam packed week, next week.

I did get an evening out last night (thanks Z, cabin fever was biting deep!) and have started summer preparations- Ciara now has a summer hat and some capri leggings. I even got to go to the movies, I watched Agora which I thought was brilliant- I love historical films. I just wish I had had a chance to watch Avatar
on the big screen as everyone has been raving about it.

On the up

So I went out and invested in a disinfectant conditioner so all the bedding and more importantly all Enya's bed companions (the soft and fluffy ones) can be washed. I've also, for the first time, bought hand disinfectant so that we can hopefully keep the eye infection from spreading to Ciara, although the Eye Guy wasn't very optimistic yesterday. Thankfully even with the few doses of eyedrops Enya has had so far, we can already see a huge improvement. No longer copious amounts of green secretions we need to clean away every hour or two, although when she wakes from naps or sleeping her eyelashes are still glued together. The one disadvantage of her disgustingly long eyelashes, they are really difficult to clean properly!

Brighter news is, I've found a weekly play group being run at our local Mother Center. It is on Thursday mornings, children between the ages of 1 and 3 can be dropped off for 3 hours and supervised by a qualified adult while the parent has some time off. Since we've got back from the Kur the girls have been asking me everyday about "grayploop" (their word for play group) as they loved having other kids to play with and really enjoyed the playgroup in the clinic. This bodes well for a successfull Kindergarten start in August, but I was looking for a short term substitute to keep the enthusiasm going in the meantime. I'm going to have a look next week (we have to rearrange the play therapy appointment to allow this) but hopefully it will all go well and the girls will begin the week after. The woman at the Mother Center said that they apparently do lots of singing and crafts during the group as well as that they have a small garden attached where the kids can play outside in the warmer weather.

And the next one bites the dust

So we have the next one on antibiotics!

Enya developed a raging eye infection over the weekend and now is on AB eyedrops and eyecream for the next week. I won't post photos of how she looks, just picture Enya with 2 black eyes swollen to slits and with green secretions glueing her eyelashes together. Like I said not a pretty picture! And I won't even describe the what we had to do to get an appointment at the Eye Guy.

In the meantime Ciara and I are feeling much better, although my best friend, Doxy (AB), has a heck of a kick to it- for about an hour after I take it I have to lie down as I'm as nauseous as when I was pregnant with twins.

Continuing that train of thought, I was warned by both the doc and pharmicist that the contraceptive pill doesn't work reliably when taking my AB, so Z and I need to "take extra precautions". I had to smother a grin both times, if only they knew it takes a lot more than AB to get me pregnant!

Ciara now leading 2:1

for visits to casualty (ER).

While getting her ready for her bath on Wedensday we noticed she seemed to be blue, not just in her hands and feet but also her lips. We had noticed something similiar a few other times in the past week but wrote it off to bad lighting as by the time we got to better lighting it was always gone. On Wedensday though, the lighting was good and it was very obvious, so hey ho off to the Children's hospital we went. We were seen right into an examination room and had less than a 5 minute wait before the doctor came in! First question out of his mouth after I told our sorry tale was does she have a congenital heart problem, so I had to mention the ASD. His next comment made me laugh though- "but she had a normal post natal development, right?". So then I had to explain the whole micropreemie born at 25 weeks weighing 690g bit.

In the end he said it was just an overreaction of the autonomic nervous system (due to her illness) that caused the blue colouration and was not unusual and to expect her to do it again for the next few days (which she promptly has done). Yet again an overreaction from me, kids really should come with instruction books- with a large diagnosis of error section! Thankfully she is much better though and not at all cranky in comparison to how she has been.

I, on the other hand, have a new best friend called Doxy, as after feeling better for a few days things have gone rapidly downhill. After a horrendous night with the whole left side of my face (especially my teeth) hurting, I have landed up on antibiotics for a sinus infection. The instructions with the AB's was to take things easy which made me laugh (and then wince as all movements hurt right now), but things should get just as rapidly better as they did worse so hopefully I'll get back to happier posting soon.

Home!!

In the end we landed up coming home early from the Kur (it was supposed to end today, we've been home since Saturday), it just wasn't worth the stress anymore. By Thursday I was coming down with a humdinger of a cold/flu and so wasn't able to participate in many of my therapies/activities. Then on Friday Ciara spiked another 40C temperature (3rd illness in 3 weeks) and the decision was made to come home early.

I'm really glad we came home when we did as the last few days have been horrendous with Ciara repeatedly spiking 40+C temperatures and refusing to stay in her bed at nights (me playing baby mattress as Z still wasn't being allowed near her). It is just so much easier to manage everything in our own 4 walls, where we are master of our own timetables and don't have noisy neighbours waking up the sick angels just when we've finally gotten them to sleep.

We did land up seeing our paed yesterday as it had been suggested to me at the Kur clinic if things got worse to get a second medical opinion. While things were not much worse, they were also no better so off to the paed we went- "viral infection" was the diagnosis and "we're doing everything right, just keep on going, it should be better tomorrow".

Ciara of course blew that out the water by throwing such a temp spike last night that we landed up doing cool calf swaddles to try bring her temp down (we had a 2 hour wait before we could give her her next dose of anti pyretic). Today as the day wears on she is creeping up again into the 39C range which means tonight is probably going to be another mess.

I feel an absolute mess too with a sexy deep Marlene voice, a foghorn cough and sinuses 10 seconds before implosion, but hey at least I don't have anyone lying on my chest right now for the first time in days (I managed to convince Ciara to nap in our bedroom without me!).

So in summary: all still sick as dogs but very happy to be home. There really is nowhere as good as home!

PS Enya still surprisingly chirpy with no fever although she too has the foghorn cough. She's also lost her appetite and found a donkeys, which can only be good since both girls have lost about half a "hard fought for" kilo in the last 3 weeks.