Our last day in the U.S. was quite memorable. On Saturday evening (our last night before returning to South Africa), Melissa and Debbie’s friend ___, who’s studying music, came to visit, and played all sorts of lovely children’s songs on her guitar. The following morning Melissa and Jessie watched Lukas for me for a couple hours while I packed, and Debbie helped me to get everything together and bring it out to the car. Then we went to breakfast at, ___, a place in the neighborhood (Jamaica Plain) especially known for their brunches. It was delicious! What a perfect way to end our time in the U.S. I had a breakfast burrito and some of Melissa’s yummy blueberry pancakes. And they had the BEST chocolate milk!!!
The way home was all but uneventful. It included us losing our passports before boarding the plane to leave the country, running around the Washington airport in search of these vitally important documents, and nearly missing several flights along the way. There were no bassinets available for the 15 hour flight, but they were able to give us a whole row to ourselves, which allowed us to lie down (with me nearly falling off the seat the majority of the time), and gave me a chance to spread out and make myself “comfortable”. Our neighbor, Madeline picked us up from the airport in George, where we arrive without our car seat, forcing us to hold Lukas on our laps for the 30 minute ride back to Mossel Bay. Once we got home, I ordered some food from the delivery service. After all that airplane food, I wanted to order something healthy, so I chose fish. Had I eaten the fish as soon as it arrived, I might not have had food poisoning on my very first morning at “home”. And then Lukas began to show all of the symptoms of a cold, so I made an appointment with the pediatrician.
The earliest we could see the Doctor was Thursday. By then, he was super congested, so the doctor prescribed a decongestant and antibiotic. The following evening, I could feel the wheezing in his chest as he breathed, which really concerned me. And the following morning, Lukas was coughing so hard that he threw up... several times. So I called the doctor again, who suggested that I bring Lukas into the hospital, so that he could have a look at him. Had I known that we were going to have stay there, I probably would have left the dog at home. In any case, we ended up spending 3 days and 2 nights in the hospital, where they diagnosed him with two viruses – Moraxella Catarrhalis and RSV. They tried everything to make him better, from using a nebulator with adrenaline every two hours, to strong antibiotics, cortisone treatments, and Singulair (and asthma medicine that has been helpful in some cases). And while all of this was happening, my internet was down, meaning there was no way for me to research either the viruses, or the treatments they were giving him. How frustrating!
Actually the Internet is still down, which is why I’m having to write this document in Word right now. As I write, I am wasting incredible amounts of time on the phone with the oh-so-incompetent South African telephone company Telkom – in an attempt to get our Internet back up and running.
Anyhoo, while we were in the hospital, there were several neat things that happened. Lukas saw Tobi for the first time in 3 weeks, and his face just lit up! Lukas also began to feed other people (Papa, that is)... which is really cute to watch. And despite his yucky cold, he became known by the nurses as the “Happy Chappy”. They were surprised at how smiley he was, and as he regained strength, he began to crawl all over the place, wondering what he’d find behind each door.
So that was our week. But now we’re finally at home, as a family. Today Lukas picked a spoon up and wanted to feed me (air, that is). Very cute.
Well, I better run. My “me” time is running out. Until next time!
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