Week 332: Seeing Red

Ah, another Christmas complete. Generally speaking, we had a lovely time. Grandma and Grandpa were in town from New York, many fabulous gifts were exchanged, too much delicious food was consumed, movies were watched, quality time with family was enjoyed by all. And yet, as always, there were a few little wrinkles.

First of all, we decided to start Cayston on Christmas Eve. I mean, what holiday season is complete without a course of strong antibiotics? It was definitely the right decision, though. Lemon was pretty sick, had been sick for a week with no real sign of improvement, and the cough began to improve pretty much immediately after we started. Fingers crossed we will be able to get away with a 10-day course this time, and have him back at "winter baseline" in time for when school resumes next week. Of course, we have lost yet more ground on nutrition that we now need to make up. Luckily he is well enough now to tolerate the regular volume of tube feeding overnight, so at least there's hope that we may at some point get back to where we once were.

In other minor health crises, Grandpa managed to cut himself pretty badly with a kitchen knife and went to the ER to seek medical attention (verdict: tetanus booster and prophylactic course of oral antibiotics). Grandma caught a virus from somewhere or another and unfortunately wasn't feeling that great for the latter half of their visit. At least the conjunctivitis didn't set in until they were safely back in New York (no, I am not making this up).





Then there was the slime. The boys got a set of new, weird Play-Doh like things as a gift. One of them was called Super Cloud, which is basically somewhere between slime and silly putty. At some point, Lime decided to smear a handful of it on Lemon's shirt. The babysitter, who was with them at the time, took the not entirely unreasonable step of taking off the shirt and tossing it directly into the washing machine, unbeknownst to me. Then, the next day, I decided to embark on one of my favorite thankless tasks, washing all the covers from the cushions on our couch, which get kind of grimy due to the number of forts that are built around here. So, I threw a load of cushion covers into the machine, ran it, and was thrilled to discover that they all came out covered in blotches of red slime; blotches that were impervious to isopropanol, acetone, dish soap, and, well, everything.  Fabulous. A call to the company resulted in such helpful comments as "It got on the couch? Really? I will have to have a specialist call you back." Because who would have thought that a gloppy product marketed to preschoolers could ever come into contact with a sofa?

In any event, upon noting that the product did seem to soften up in hotter water, I took a risk and ran the cushions covers through the washing machine again with warmer water, and that appeared to get rid of the splotches. Or, it spread the red slime in such a thin, even layer on our red cushion covers that it was not noticeable. Either way, our couch is cleaner, reassembled, and not permanently disfigured. And the Play-Doh company is sending an age-appropriate game as compensation for our troubles. They asked if I wanted a replacement Play-Doh product, to which I replied with a very emphatic "NO!"

So, that was our holidays in a nutshell. And, onward to 2020, where my greatest wish is for the pediatric approval for Trikafta to come through. Fingers crossed, everyone!