Mmmm....yummy!

Drugs! Don't those just look tasty? This is what we have to hide in Ashi's milk everyday, it gets all crushed together into a scrumptious looking red powder. Ah...better living through chemistry.










Mmm, technicolor milk, that's rad!









I just noticed it's the same color as his sweatshirt. Wow, he is one super fly guy!

So currently Ashi is still being treated for multi-drug resistant TB
(MDR TB in CDC lingo), but last week the lab finally noticed some bugs growing in his sputum from the aspiration. Hopefully in another week or so they will be able to test those bugs to determine what drugs are most effective for his strain...and...cut his meds in half! Oh that would be nice. How would you like drinking that "milk" everyday?

I actually wonder what it tastes like, it's got to be dang awful considering how many jalapenos it took to sneak those meds into his food. But there is just something magical about the bottle, he luuuuuuuvs the bottle. He's yet to get anything but adulterated milk in it, but he don't care. It's either got the chemical cocktail, or iron drops (have you ever tasted iron drops? You could gag a cow with those suckers) or poly-vi-sol, or fortified rice cereal. And most often, a combination of the above.

But other than the yucky drugs, and the nurse coming everyday (oh big brother) the biggest bummer about being sick is missing out on all the fun stuff. As soon as we sprung from quarantine Ashi had his first class of Sensational Toddlers at the Whatcom Center for Early Learning. This is sooo much fun! The kids get stripped down to their diapers to get all messy with different sensory activities- like driving trucks through chocolate pudding, painting with spray foam, playing in a pool of shredded paper, squishing gak, you name it. And then, the best part, someone else cleans it all up! They honestly cannot get too messy. It is a type-A mother's dream come true- because it's not in my house!

"Uh... you want me to touch THAT?"

Two minutes later he discovered the pleasure of licking his fingers (it's chocolate!) And the rice and beans were the biggest hit. I was digging those out of the cracks for the rest of the day.But, quite predictably, two days later he was sick. Nothin' much, just a little cold. But boy o'boy, it is no fun to have a cold when you have TB. Coughing and screaming through the night, wheezy whistling breathing, cruddy junky lungs, choking when you eat (which unfortunately ends with vomit), basically no fun at all. He's got an amazing immune system, but his lungs have trouble keeping up.

After only 2 classes, the whole flu thing starts going around (or as the cool kids say, "the swine"- but really it doesn't matter, it's a flu) and the Health Department thought it would be best for Christian to stay home from school for a while too. Elementary schools are such germ factories, it isn't that I'm not a fan of that feature, but we probably have some fresh and different bugs floating around on this side of the pond that Ashi's not used to.

So the kids have been back on house arrest for a couple of weeks now. Christian is such a trooper, he's doing really well with it, and my mom is keeping him busy. He's had some playdates with his nice clean germ free friends Brady and Jackson, his Sunday School teacher Purell's the crap out of him at church, and the weather is finally cooperating for more activities where the kids aren't going to get coughed on or touch boogers.

Unfortunately for Christian though, the coup de grâce has certainly been missing out on our Sunday morning McDonald's Playland dates with the Boyle's. It's the little things in life.