Sickness and seizures

We all had a really rough week. Brendon started on Saturday (15th) with flu pain. Strangely this latest flu causes a lot of pain in legs. And so he eventually realized by the evening what was causing the pain - the whole day he just through he was stiff. Then he remembered others mentioning the leg pain. He had a very busy week at work though, so didn't get to just take off and rest properly, so it dragged on through the whole week.
On Thursday (20th) at 11:20am, Asher had a 2 minute Tonic seizure where she went very blue. Then at 3:30pm she had a 1 minute Tonic Clonic. At this point there was no fever and she didn't look sick at all. It's been 9 days since her last seizure and I am sure these happened because of all the sickness in the house.
On Friday morning she seemed fine, so we headed off to Champion Centre. I decided it was time to give sliding a try (on a big "proper" slide that is). She loved the slide and we were thrilled that she didn't have any seizure through the day. So hopefully the motion of sliding is no longer a trigger for her. I think all the small sliding at home on the castle's slide, has helped get her body more and more used to it.
Hezekiah had gotten a fever during the week, and no other symptoms. He had spend many hours lying on the couch and sleeping in his bed. He was a good little patient and just took himself off to bed when he was too tired. Thankfully he didn't have any other symptoms - just the fever for almost 2 solid days. The fever eventually came down, but then went up and down for a couple more days.
Unfortunately by Friday evening, Ruth was not feeling well. She ended up sleeping on the couch for a few hours. Here eyes got sore and her legs and arms too. Brendon got to the doc on Friday and realized he really needed to get himself better. He had a lot of phlegm on his chest, so the doc gave him an inhaler to loosen that. He gave him antibiotics too, and said that if his chest was no better in 2 days, he would have to start the antibiotic. He also said that if he continued with a fever while on antibiotics, he was to get back to the doc asap. There has been so much pneumonia in the area lately. I got a bit of a fright on the weekend when Brendon told me he had blood in the phlegm. I felt better when he told me that a friend had had the same thing when he had this flu a little while ago. I don't think it helped that I was feeling ill through the weekend too. So it was a really tough time for us all.

Hannah after her first ballet lesson.
Tuesday 25th.

Added to Brendon and I being sick, Asher ended up having 4 (possibly 5) more seizures. Saturday 3:15pm - 1 1/2 minute Tonic Clonic. Soon after waking from her sleep we think we might have missed a vacant one, as she then slept again from 4:45 to 5:45.
At 6pm she had a 3 1/2 minute one which started off vacant and went to Tonic Clonic. I think both Brendon and I were feeling at this stage that if we saw more that evening, we would need to consider heading into the hospital. So we were thankful she had a good, seizure free night. She did have a fever on and off through Saturday and thankfully it stayed down through Saturday night.
Unfortunately at 6pm on Sunday night the fever was up again and she had a 1 minute Tonic Clonic. Unfortunately at 1:30am on Monday morning, she had a 1 minute Tonic Clonic. So we had a few more hours of waiting and wondering if things would settle down.

Thankfully she didn't have any more seizures. I was however, exhausted.
On Tuesday the 18th I put this request on fb:
I would appreciate your prayers for Asher over the next week (preventively this time).
Brendon has been coming down with the flu since Saturday and last night had a fever. We know that if Asher gets a fever she is very likely to have a seizure. So please pray that her body would be able to fight well and not get sick.
It would be a blessing if the rest of us can stay well too. This flu has been going around at Brendon's work and the people have been off for a week at a time - so it's a nasty one. Please pray that Brendon can recover quickly. He is off today, but plans to be back at work again tomorrow.
At first I felt like none of those prayers had been answered. But on reflection, I wrote the following on Wednesday 26th.

What a week it has been.
Although the Lord chose not to answer the prayers to keep the flu from going through the family, and for Asher to not get sick and have seizures, I can still see that many prayers have been answered.

It's been a hard week and although Asher did get a fever a few times, she has not gotten very sick, and for this I am very grateful.
From Thursday through Monday she did have 6 seizures, but thankfully no more than 2 really close together. There were a number of times I wondered if we would be having to head into hospital, wondering if a bad cluster was going to start. But it didn't. So I thank all those who have been praying, and I thank the Lord for answering the prayers in this way.
Yes, it's been a hard week, but it could have been far worse. The last time she had a fever she ended up having 7 seizures in just 24 hours!!!

Another blessing the Lord gave, was that none of us really struggled with a runny / blocked nose. So I didn't have a week of wiping noses (Asher and Hezekiah that is - as that can be so exhausting in itself). And with both Asher and Hezekiah - they didn't seem to struggle with any pain or any other symptoms really - other than the fever. I am really grateful for this.

Although most of us still have the odd cough and the children are all still getting tired really quickly and not eating "normally" yet, we are all doing a lot better and I am hopeful that we are over the worst of it.

Thank you for your prayers. God is faithful, even when the answers are not exactly what we had hoped for.

The 2 photos above and this photo are from the 26th. Asher was needing an extra nap before lunch this week - her body just exhausted from the flu. Today Ruth spent some time with her on my bed, and when I went to check on them 10 minutes later - they were both asleep. :-)
We missed Brownies on Thursday as Hannah wasn't feeling great.
Asher seemed fine on Friday though, and Ruth and I finally felt better - so we headed to Champion Centre. Although Asher wasn't sick, she was a very unhappy little girl. I think this was the only smile we got from her through the morning. She did love playing with the lovely stickers. :-)
Saturday 29th. Hezekiah headed out with Brendon today. We have missed a couple of weeks due to rain and illness.

He had such a fun time at the school sand pit.

It made Brendon talk about getting ours filled a bit more for summer (it doesn't have nearly enough sand in in now). The children will spend hours out there. We also just need to work out a practical way to cover it (so we don't have any cats visiting it). And Brendon also suggested investing in some good quality spades. I think in the past we have always bought the cheap sand-pit sets of toys, and they just don't last.
So we have an item on our "to do list" for summer. :-)