My Life Motto

I Get Knocked Down...But I Get Up Again...

Ahh...Where to begin. I'm realizing the longer I go without posting, the harder it is to catch everyone up :( The last two weeks have been disastrous for me. It started with Ethan (my 5 yr old) waking up one morning with yellow pus running out of his left ear. I panicked and called the doctor to make a same day appointment for him. As were sitting around waiting for it to be time to leave, Sienna (22mth old) comes up to me holding her leg out saying oww. There is a tennis ball size lump on her inner thigh and it's bright red and hot to the touch. I immediately called the doc back to arrange for her to be seen too. Turns out Ethan had a ruptured ear drum and Sienna was having an allergic reaction to a bug bite. End result of the doc appointment was antibiotics for both..Ethan 3 times a day and Sienna twice a day. Yeah, it will be no problem penciling that into my busy schedule. GRR. Fast forward 7 days and I get a phone call that my Grandmother passed away. Although we were semi prepared, I was devastated. She was so important to me.... I still can't really believe she's gone. Worse was... I couldn't go home to NJ to say my final goodbyes. Granted, she would not have wanted me to leave my kids and go there, I still feel pretty terrible about it. Fast forward a few more days to this past Sunday (the day I would have returned home VERY late had I gone to NJ) Ethan wakes up with yellow pus running out of his right ear (the good ear) WTF!!! Off to the ER we go and I'm told that now both ear drums are ruptured and that the antibiotics he was on aren't working (no shit!) and he is getting super strong ear drops and needs to see his regular doctor to talk about a possible surgery consult for tubes. Sigh.... As horrible as it was, I realized that had I gone to NJ, Ethan would have suffered all day with that poor ear because in my sorrow, I wouldn't have thought to get a power of attorney for the friend who had offered to watch the kids to take him to the doctor (bad mom). So...even though it was terrible, I felt like it was Grandma's way of letting me know I had made the right choice and that I should have peace with it. I guess what all of this boils down to is, I knew this deployment would be hard, and I knew I would have to face challenges, but these past 2 weeks have been absolute hell and I wasn't prepared for it. But I'm strong...I have to be... There is more to this story unfortunately, but I'm tired and don't have the desire or the energy to finish...Check back on Friday...I will hopefully have some answers from Ethan's follow up doc appt and maybe...just maybe...I'll be able to stomach telling the missing piece of this disaster story...Maybe