Can I just complain about my crappy life for a minute?

UGH! When it rains, it pours. For the longest time, I've been feeling like my life was going along fairly status quo. Pretty boring and uneventful. I guess everything was waiting to happen to us all at once.

This post is pretty negative - I'll have to warn everyone right up front. The last week of my life has pretty much sucked, but writing about it is cathartic. So I'm feeling compelled to write it all down for posterity. I just don't know where to begin. . .

maybe with my kids. The last entry I wrote was about my poor sick Bryn, who I assumed was suffering from a bad reaction to her vaccination. Well, that changed. After 2 straight weeks of diarrhea, vomiting and high fevers I finally took her to the doctor - who diagnosed her with cryptosporidiosis. From the CDC website:

Cryptosporidiosis is a diarrheal disease caused by microscopic parasites of the genus Cryptosporidium. Once an animal or person is infected, the parasite lives in the intestine and passes in the stool. The parasite is protected by an outer shell that allows it to survive outside the body for long periods of time and makes it very resistant to chlorine- based disinfectants. Both the disease and the parasite are commonly known as "crypto."
Cryptosporidium lives in the intestine of infected humans or animals. Millions of crypto germs can be released in a bowel movement from an infected human or animal. Consequently, Cryptosporidium is found in soil, food, water, or surfaces that have been contaminated with infected human or animal feces. If a person swallows the parasite they become infected.
The most common symptom of cryptosporidiosis is watery diarrhea. Other symptoms include:

• Dehydration
• Weight loss
• Stomach cramps or pain
• Fever
• Nausea
• Vomiting

Some people with crypto will have no symptoms at all. While the small intestine is the site most commonly affected , Cryptosporidium infections could possibly affect other areas of the digestive or the respiratory tract .

There's been such a huge crypto outbreak this year, that all public pools are closed to children under 5 until the end of the summer. I've been home with sick kids for almost 2 full weeks. Gracelin hasn't had it too bad - just the occasional run to the bathroom and a couple of puke sessions. Poor Bryn though has been miserable: multiple messy diapers a day, no appetite, lots of puke, and she's gotten so skinny. Bryn's been a bear too - she's become such a mommy's girl that not even daddy can't help her. She cries almost constantly and wakes multiple times in the night. Last night she cried for almost an hour before she fell asleep, and then was up about 3 times. She hasn't had diarrhea in 3 days, so I took her to daycare today. I HAVE to work (more on that in a minute). She cried and cried when I left her. I actually think I'm going to call in a few minutes and make sure that she is ok. It broke my heart to leave her because she obviously isn't feeling well still.

And of course I got sick too. I've had symptoms more akin to what G's experienced, so its been manageable. But the fever and aches have been enough to make me miserable.

In the midst of all this horrible sickness, Ben lost his job. He'd been working for a real estate investment company. Obviously its not a good time for real estate, and several employees (including Ben) were "let go" last week - with no warning and no severance. (I could type a whole post about how low and dirty I think that is, but I'll refrain) So, the poor guy has been networking his butt off, trying to find something. We're seriously considering having him stay at home with the girls, and do some type of job at nights. I've even found a job that pays almost $2000 a month more than I'm making now. I've got my resume ready, and Ben is going to drop it off for me. I know we'll be ok. After the whole shock and horror of it all, I've had a calm peace about things. But it sure does suck!

Then yesterday I got a call that my 6 year old nephew was in ICU. The poor kid and his brothers have been through so much lately. (I haven't felt right about posting their plight on the web, but its bad) Over the weekend, he had a bad asthma attack that couldn't be controlled at home. So he went to the ER. The medication opened his airways and created something called respiratory mis-match. He went into respiratory arrest and nearly died. If he hadn't already been at the hospital he probably would have died.

Oh - and my mom also dropped the bombshell that she an my dad are talking about getting divorced. My father-in-law has cancer. The grass in my front yard is dying. A huge rock hit my windshield and it needs to be replaced. Blah. Blah. Blah.

I do feel though that we're all going to be ok. The stress is draining me, and I'm exhausted. But I am confident that we'll be ok.

Thanks for letting me complain!