ER Visit & Goodbyes

Monday April 18th, it was time for the kids to get back to school again, and Spring Break was over. Cassie left early morning and she was ready to go back and see her friends again. When the kids were in school, we left to go to Kadena to first sign our guests up for base passes, and then the men went golfing. I took Sina to Cassie's school and signed her in so that she could eat lunch with Cassie and meet her friends, and after that, I signed Cassie out early from school and we all went to the BX for some shopping.

There were clothes and some last minute souvenirs to be bought and brought home. When Ben and Isabella came home from their bus, Ben immediately complained that his head hurt and he didn't look good at all. He felt hot, and as soon as we were home, I took his temperatures. And sure enough, he had a pretty high fever with 102 F. Got him medicine and cooled off at the sofa with drinks and cold towels, and he soon fell asleep.

We had planned to go out for dinner as this was their last night as they were going to fly to to Hong Kong the next day. Normally our kids do well taking their medicine and the fever goes down, and I suggested that the others go along for the dinner and that I stay home with Ben and Isabella. That way, they didn't have to think about what she was going to eat and not to eat and be able to go to a Sushi restaurant if they wanted to.

But, later in the evening, Ben didn't improve, his fever didn't go down but kept rising. This was very unusual, and he was crying and I was starting to worry. At 8pm the fever was over 103F and rising, and I called the 24/7 nurse line, and got to talk to the Dr on call. He said to try to alternate the Ibuprofen (Motrin) that I had been giving him, with Tylenol every four hours. As the Ibuprofen we had proscribed for him could only be given every 8 hours, and I had given it to him at 4pm, it was another 4 hours before I could give it to him again. The Dr. said to give him Tylenol asap and if it wasn't going down with that either, we should take him to the ER when the fever reaches 104 F.

I called my friend R here in the tower, and she luckily had Tylenol at home. We normally don't as our kids don't like the flavor that it has, they do take the Ibuprofen without problem, so I didn't have any in the house. He took the Tylenol, and I let Chris know and they were about to finish up dinner. After 30 minutes, the fever still wasn't down, and when I took it again, it was reaching 104.2 and I got everything ready to leave to the ER. Chris and the others came home, we left straight away to the hospital.

Ben was almost falling asleep in the car, but I tried to keep him awake as I was scared he would go into fever cramps as it was the highest fever he had ever had.

When we came into the ER, we were seen right away, and luckily the temperature now at this point, about an hour after I had given him the Tylenol the medicine had started to help, was going down!

Still, we had to wait for the Dr to have a thorough examination, as he didn't have any other cold symptoms. I was worried that it would be pneumonia or even something else, but the Dr. was crossing one thing after the other off the list, so we really didn't have any idea at this point. We stayed at the hospital for observation for a few hours, and after keeping the fever under control with the medication, we were released and sent home around 1am in the morning.

My poor baby boy all wiped out with fever and medicine at the ER.

I had him next to me during the night to make sure his fever stayed down, or that he didn't start feeling worse, and he slept good. In the morning a few hours of hardly any sleep for me, I was tired when the alarm went off. Cassandra's lunch still needed to be made and to make sure that she gets out of the house at 6am. Then Isabella was getting up and to the school bus, without her brother that had to stay at home ofcourse.

Chris picked up his sister and family from the hotel, they had breakfast here and we said our goodbyes and then they were off to the airport. They were going to Hong Kong and staying there for 2 days before flying back home to Switzerland.

Ben was tired and still had fever, but with the now alternating medicines I was able to keep it under control. He had to stay at home with medicine for two days, and then he had to stay off medicine for atlast 24 hours to be sure that it was under control before going back to school, so he ended up staying at home the rest of that week. He was fever free without medicine on Thursday and on Friday morning I took him to the Dr for a follow up visit, to make sure that lungs still sounded good, that there was no strep throat developing or anything else, as he didn't even have a cold. But nothing, he as good to go and happy as could be, as he then could attend a birthday party that he was invited to in the afternoon!

Brunch & Movie Sunday

The restaurant here on our base, serves brunch every Sunday. The last Sunday our visitors were here, we decided to go for brunch with the kids, while our husbands were spending the day at the golf course. I wish that I could have been able to drink a few of the Mimosas, but as I was driving, there was only juice and coffee for me.

Crepes station

We are in Okinawa after all!

Omelet station

Turkey and ham carving station.

The "normal" breakfast station. 

Pancakes, French Toast, Bacon, Sausages, Toast..

And desserts!

As the weather was beautiful and the views are nice from their patio, we went outside to take a few pictures of the cousins together.

After the buffet, we went out for a few errands before it was time to go to the very much longed for movie, "The Jungle Book". We were waiting for the normal showing and not the 3D version, as it's hard for the kids to follow along then, and the 3D glasses never really fits them. The movie was great, a bit scary here and there, so I ended up with both little ones in my lap at some points!

A Day At Ikei Beach

Finally the last weekend before our visitors left, we got promise of an improvement in weather, and it wasn't going to rain. We took the opportunity to pack up our things and head for Ikei Island and spend the day at the beach. Unfortunately, the sun stayed away most of the time, it was cloudy and therefore  the pictures doesn't show off the turquoise waters that are so typical here, but even if the clouds were out, we had a good time. Cassie and Sina were doing things like riding two different rubber boats, chatting, giggling and snorkeling for a bit.

Isabella was enjoying the water and swimming and spent a long time filling up her watercans that we had brought. Benjamin was busy most of the time playing in the sand and building sandcastles with his daddy, playing with water guns and having a fun time.

Here is a picture bomb from our day!

The body board served perfect as table at lunch time!

Late afternoon, we packed up our things as it started to drizzle. The rain was lingering and we were happy that we could get a day at the beach, even if we weren't able to get the sun that we had hoped for.

When we got home, I started with the less fun part after a beach day. Unpacking sandy wet clothes and towels, getting it all into the washing machine, getting body boards and sandtoys layed out on the balcony to dry, as any wet things in bags will cause mold right away here in this climate. It sure was easier when we lived in a house and had a big patio and garden. You could just go out and hose down sandtoys and other things to then dry off. Now it's more of a huzzle to get everything organized, due to lack of space.

The kids need to get a shower and bath, rubbed in with body lotion to calm dry skin, and then there is all the bags with snacks and water bottles that needs to be cleaned and packed away.

While I normally take care of this part when we come home, Chris normally gets started right away with dinner so it won't take too long. This night we had planned for BBQ ribs and potato salad and they came out really nice. After dinner and cleaning up the kitchen, and putting away food, it then is my turn to hurry to get a shower before putting the kids to bed.

Sometimes if feels like a lot of work to get the family to the beach, and it is! Therefore I enjoy it more when we can go for a whole day, and not just an hour or two. Still, the beach is my happy place even if I can't even remember when I actually were able to just lay down and enjoy the waves, the sun and read a book!! But those days will come!