Teen girls

So, Mira's doing her Mira thing, and decided she was ready for another trip downtown to the hospital. Her respiratory state was rough enough that Matt brough Leah along to sit by Mira and suction as necessary for the drive. It was good for our first daughter, having recently been accepted to the Nursing School at the U to add just a little bit more hands-on experience in an emergency department to her long list of medical experiences throughout her life. Leah was three when Reuben was diagnosed with epilepsy. Medical settings are very familiar and comfortable places for her. Apparently very comfortable, as you see how she's zonked out with her head and shoulders in Mira's chair! 😆

So, not surprisingly, Mira got admitted to the hospital a few days before Christmas. So we ended up with another Christmas photo sans Mira. It happens. What you can't see in this photo is that Leah doesn't feel good. She made it through the end of the semester at school, and then went downhill. Sick with a cough, no energy, a fever here and there...

And, believe it or not (I still can't quite believe it!) Leah herself ended up hospitalized! After her own trip to the ER with Dad and being sent home with antibiotics for pneumonia, she kept getting worse and worse. (Is it a good thing or not that we had a pulse-oximeter handy here at home that was readily available since Mira was in the hospital? We were using it for spot checks. And her fever wasn't going away and her O2 sats were slowly getting worse...) So back to the ER and she got admitted on the same day that Mira came home! Seriously - these big girls of ours!

After two nights in the hospital on IV antibiotics of a different variety, Leah was well enough to come back home and spend the rest of her winter break from school recovering.

We have an interesting health insurance situation. Being self-employed, we do not have any employer through whom to get health coverage, so for close to twenty years, we've just purchased our own directly from the insurance company. We have a high deductible plan, and, with now four family members who qualify for Medical Assistance as a secondary insurance due to their disabilities, we can easily meet our deductible in a few weeks with medical expenses that are covered by the secondary, and we have a running joke around here that no one else is allowed to get sick or need a doctor for the first six weeks of the year. Because after six weeks, the rest of us can go and it's covered 100% because our family deductible has already been met! But then LEAH had to go and be hospitalized on January 2nd!!! Seriously, girl! Haven't you been paying attention to the family rules?? 😁

But in true seriousness, what an amazing thing it is to be able to take her to the hospital. To be able to get her the medicine she needs to kick this pneumonia that she was NOT kicking on her own. That even though we have to pay the high deductible for her, that we CAN do that and we get to keep both of these girls for a while longer!