October done, November begun

Wednesday Oct 29th and Asher is still struggling with a fever. I did take her to the doctors rooms yesterday to get a swab done in her throat. At least it could be sent to the labs early the next morning then. The doc also checked her ears and the one ear was very red. The doc agreed to just wait and see if there was improvement over the next couple of days before looking at antibiotics. We want to try and keep medication to as little as possible for her as she has had so much over the last few days.
She pretty much slept till Thursday, but was aware enough of her surroundings that she didn't want to be left alone. So she was pretty much "in arms" for most of the week.
Hezekiah got a pack of "Cars" Uno cards as a present from our trip - so they enjoyed playing today. Rachel was out the whole day for her last Music Festival practice and then the concert in the evening. I was far too tried (and Asher needed me at home) so Noortjie took my ticket and Ruth and they got to enjoy the show in the evening.

These ducks have been enjoying our garden with no dogs or children over the last two weeks.
Brendon took Wednesday off which I was very grateful for. He again seems to have quickly adjusted to being home after a long trip - but I was exhausted. Not helped by the fact that I am struggling with a sore throat myself.
Ruth was pleased to get back to Brownies on Thursday and I was pleased that Brendon could go and do the picking up this week. I took Asher to the doc on Thursday afternoon and we agreed that there was no improvement and antibiotics would probably be needed to help clear the infection. Both ears were very red now.

Brendon took the older 4 children to the Light's Festival
on Friday night and they all had a great time.

On Friday she was already so much better. The fever had broken and she was finally awake for more than just a few minutes at a time. She even managed to eat a little bit. Unfortunately by lunch time she went down quickly and had a terrible afternoon. She just seemed in so much pain and could not settle no matter what I did. Eventually I gave her pain meds to try and get her to settle.
I had phoned the doctor to get some advice on what to do and he called back later in the afternoon. He suggested I bring her in to just check things properly. Thankfully her ears were only pink now. We chatted about it possibly being her stomach not being happy with the antibiotics. We discussed possibly stopping them but he suggested we just go to twice a day rather than 3 times and see how that goes. She was better while we were there but then after her evening dose she was just so unhappy again.

So I decided to stop the antibiotics and make a note not to let her have those ones again. They did seem to be the cause of her pain. She obviously got just enough in to help clear the infection - but we were just not able to give her the full course (which is always so important with antibiotics).
She was a little bit better on Saturday but you can see from the children photo that she was still very tired. She slept a lot and didn't eat much. At least the fever and pain was gone though.
Sunday 2nd Nov. We decided to rather stay home today and I was glad we did as it was really good for Asher to just have a "normal" day at home. It was the first time in a week that she had 3 meals in the day and only slept for her afternoon nap.

She even enjoyed "helping" Dad in the garden.
It's been a long hard week seeing her so unwell, so this was a huge blessing.
Hannah was a huge help in the garden and did so much raking. The grass was so long after our time away that it needed to be raked up.
Thanks Hannah for your hard work.

Monday 3rd November and I was able to take another children's photo and what a difference. So lovely to have our happy little girl back.

Tuesday 4th and what funny weather today. Ruth happened to have a science experiment that she did today - taking the temperature every hour for 6 hours. It started off at 17.5 at 8:30 but by midday it was down to just 15!!!!
Wednesday 5th saw Hannah, Asher and I heading into town for Asher to see our chiropractor.
We are praying that the Lord would use this to help stop or better control Asher's seizures as it did for Emma's daughter (mentioned in my post here). It will most likely take a few sessions to really "work" if this is an answer for her, but we are praying that it will at least delay the next seizure. For the last couple of months she has been having seizures every 2 weeks. So it would be really good to see this gap increasing again.
Friday 7th saw Ruth off on a Brownie camp and as she is normally the one to help with fish on Friday - it ended up being Rachel and myself crumbing the fish today. Only when Asher came in and said "hi" and Rachel looked down at her - did she noticed that we were both wearing pink shirts with our blue jeans today. :-)
Rachel discovered she really likes frying the fish - so she has taken that on as an extra weekly job. FYI we crumb the fish in psyllium husks (so it's gluten free) and then fry the fish in coconut oil as I have been trying to find more ways of getting coconut oil into Asher (and it's good for all of us anyway).
On my way to town on Wednesday I stopped in at the recylcing shop and managed to get this bike for Hezekiah for $4. The back cog was broken but we weren't worried about taking the chain off. We wanted the pedals off anyway to start with. So this is just a permanent balance bike now. A good way for little ones to learn to ride. He calls it his "supa hero bike". :-) Thanks to Larry boy on Veggie Tales.
Asher found my socks and shoes lying around and decided to try them on for size. :-)
Saturday 8th. I heard Hezekiah talking away and saw him having a long conversation with his "brother" in the mirror. SO cute.
You can see he got that hair cut that he so desperately needed. :-)
And then off to the park with Dad. It was only later that I realized we had gotten the order wrong (it should have been me with Hezekiah this time around). It's been so long since the last outings though - that it was just more important that we just get back into it. He always makes a note about the green slide and says he wishes it was blue.

They took the soccer ball with too. Hezekiah really loves these times and had been asking the whole week when he would be going.




I did know that to finish off the last round I needed to go out with Rachel (I just forgot that whoever ends the round also starts the round).

On Friday I saw a poster about a play that was taking place on Saturday evening in Waikari, and it ended up being an perfect opportunity to do something special together. The play was called The Bookbinder. It was written and performed by a local doctor's son and I could see he was a very proud Dad. And rightly so. It was excellent.

Today Rachel purposefully put her matching purple top on. :-)