Alianna VS MRSA

It all started last Wednesday night. I had had a nasty stomach bug earlier that week and Alianna and ArJay got it that night. Alianna also had what looked like a bug bite on her nether regions right next to her panty line. SO the next day I cleaned up after my two sickies and noticed that her " bug bite" was getting rather swollen. At first I thought it was just a bug bite that she had been scratching.

Friday morning it was looking really gnarly so I called my doctor and convinced them to let me come in and have her checked that morning.  Do you ever feel like your doctor might think you are a crazy psycho mom and freaking out about silly little things? Well, I thought I would feel really silly if this was just a bug bite, but I thought " who cares if you're silly! Better to be safe and silly!" So the Doctor comes in and looks at it and immediately says its a MRSA infection. Yes validation I'm not crazy! But oh crap what does that mean? Basically, MRSA is a really nasty staph infections that is resistant to most antibiotics.  So she gives us a prescription for this antibiotic that was pretty strong( it said on the bottle that she shouldn't be out in sunlight for too long) and says to give LOTS of warm baths to try to flush it out. And it was contagious and she shouldn't be around too many other kids.

So that was Friday November 8th. Alianna's 5th birthday was the next day, the 9th. We had an awesome birthday planned, we were taking her and some friends to the beauty school to get the "party girl package" with the nails and hair done. Then we were going to Peter Piper Pizza with her cousins. Needless to say, we had to cancel all of it.  She was incredibly gracious about it and when I told her we couldn't do it she said" Yeah, I don't to give anyone else the MRSA's. But do you think, maybe, when I get better, we could maybe do SOMETHING for my birthday?" What a doll. I don't think life gets worse when you are 5 years old then getting your birthday canceled. As ArJay said, " IF she got the flu and MRSA in the first week of being 5, what else is it going to bring?"

So my parents and brother came out Friday night to pick up Kendall and give her her presents. They took Kendall because, remember we all had been sick and home bound all week and were going to stay that way for the weekend. Kendall had not been sick at all and was going stir crazy. Plus, we didn't want him getting sick. Unfortunately, my brother and dad got the stomach bug just from coming to our house for like an hour even though none of us had had it for days. I felt like nailing our door shut "sorry, we can not allow anyone into our home, we are trying not to infect the world."

So Alianna spent most of the weekend in the bathtub. That, or she was in so much pain and straddle-shuffle-walking to the couch.  On Monday, it started draining, like a lot. We went to the doctor appointment Tuesday morning feeling optimistic. It still looked gross, but I thought so much had drained we had to be out of the woods. The doctor looked at it and touched it and said the surface infection was out but it had burrowed down in and she was sending us to the surgeon and she would have to be put to sleep and have surgery to get it out. Or they would locally numb it and dig it out at the surgeons office. I was in shock and extremely upset.

I honestly can not even describe how I felt. I wanted them to just put her to sleep because I was horrified that they would keep her awake and she would be traumatized, especially since it was such a sensitive area. But I was also so scared to have my little barely 5 year old have an invasive surgery. I jsut wanted it to be a bad dream and go away.

I reached out, on Facebook( where else) and asked for people's thought and prayers. I felt a little silly for doing it, but honestly, I needed to feel like we were doing SOMETHING to make it better and all I could do was ask my loved ones to pray with me. I can not even express the outpouring of love I felt from our friends and family. I had dinner offers, friends call, and two people offered to drop off doterra essential oils that are natural antibiotics. I took one friend up on here offer. I'll be honest, I was quite the skeptic; but again, I was willing to try anything that could help.She gave me a bunch of oils and we were to put them on her feet every 2 hours.

My dad came over after work to help ArJay give her a blessing. It was such a sweet blessing and ArJay turned to me when it was over, saw the tears streaming down my face,  and asked if I wanted one too. What a good, righteous, thoughtful man he is.  So I received a blessing of comfort and strength. It was beautiful and buoyed up my heart. But he said one thing that made me nervous. He said something about how the Lord was mindful of me and would strengthen me in the darkness and trials to come. I just thought " WAIT WHAT? What darkness?! I don't like the sound of that, is it going to get worse?"

SO ArJay had to work that night so after I put the kids to bed I prayed and cried and prayed some more. I read scriptures searching out any to do with trials and courage. I don't think I got to sleep until 1:30am and still tossed and turned all night.

My sister in law lives 5 minutes from the surgeons office, so we dropped both boys off there and ArJay and I both went to the appointment. When I came back in the car from dropping the boys, Alianna was crying. I asked her if it was hurting( that had also been a regular occurrence all weekend) She said no she was just really nervous and didn't want to go because it would hurt. My heart broke. I tried to reassure her while keeping my own emotions in check. I said even if they did something it would be a shot and she had just had her flu shot the day before so she remembered that it hurt, but only for a minute. She said that it wasn't the same because it was on her "bum". I had nothing left to say so I just held her on the drive over and said it would be ok and mommy and daddy would be there.

So we checked in and she had calmed down because they had fun new books in the lobby, the girl is my kid and loves reading. The doctor comes in and was telling Alianna how they share a birthday and I said "yeah she had to miss it since she has MRSA" She says" How do you know it's MRSA?"  " Um... because our doctor said so?" " Did she do a culture to check?" "NO...?"" Well we can't be positive it's MRSA then"
WAIT WHAT??? How was I supposed to know that, that's what the doctor said! She saw my look of fury and backtracked by saying it probably was, but you can't know for sure unless the culture is done. So she looks at it and starts squeezing. Alianna convulsed and started writhing in pain. I went to hold her and try to hold her down at the same time. WORST. MOM. MOMENT.EVER.
She says we obviously can't do anything here in the office since just that hurt her so bad( duh! it's a sensitive area and she's only 5!). Then she asks if it has been getting better. Yes it had. It had vastly improved since the night before when we started the oils( I am a true believer now!).She asked if she was acting sick or better. Again, yes she didn't act sick at all and could even walk straight now. She said she didn't believe it was burrowed down in anymore after touching it and that we could just keep doing what we were doing with the baths and antibiotics and it should finish clearing up on it's own. We were supposed to call her today if it got worse at all so she could schedule a surgery tomorrow before the weekend. Hallelujah! I seriously felt like....I don't know like I gained 10 years of my life that I had been fretting away. That's not even strong enough to convey the enormous bone-deep relief I felt.

I still haven't quite come down from the roller coaster of emotions. It might seem silly and trivial, and I know many people deal with much worse, but this was very traumatic for me. Not for Alianna or for ArJay, they were incredibly strong and, aside from her mini meltdown, didn't ever seem to waver in their faith. I feel humbled and blessed and inadequate to have them and for the amazing friends we have we were so quick to reach out to us with prayers, words of encouragement, and even with those oils (that I am convinced made a huge difference for her). But I feel most blessed for the power of prayer in my life and the knowledge of a loving Heavenly Father who listens to and answers prayers.