O Christmas Tree

Amazingly, Siouxsie made it through and is now back at home!  More on that in a bit, because this blog is supposed to be about Evie, but I won't deny that Siouxsie being in the hospital and then at the vet hasn't made Evie upset and affected the dynamic of our home.

Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent and Evie went to church with me.  She's been going every other week because I figure that's enough to keep worship fresh for her without increasing her potential exposure to COVID, but here during Advent when the service is full of special sacred music and Advent wreath lighting and the Gloria in Excelsis Deo and all those beautiful things, I want her to go with me every week.  Our church is limiting the number of worshippers and all the chairs are spread out 6 feet or more, and everyone is wearing masks.  That doesn't eliminate the risk, of course, but it does help.

We got down all the Christmas decorations on Saturday and it made the house feel more homey and festive.  I usually am a bit of a Grinch when it comes to decorating right after Thanksgiving, but this year, with so much being lost/taken away, when Evie asked to decorate I couldn't resist.

We have a special box of Christmas stuff that's just for Evie's room.  It includes a white table top Christmas tree with Nutcracker ornaments and pink ball ornaments.  She also has a countdown Christmas tree, Fisher Price play sets of a manger scene and a Hanukkah scene, and a ton of Christmas books.  But I think one of her favorite things is the Advent calendar tree that sits on the dining room table.  Each box contains a Hershey's kiss this year (I didn't spend a lot of time trying to find as much of an array of chocolates like I do other years).  So starting this past Tuesday, there's been that to look forward to.  Of course, right now our dining room table is doubling as my desk since Seth now answers work calls at home and needs the office.

I got her some Christmas bedding this year, too.  Well, I guess it's more winter themed than Christmas...  I still sneak in to her room every night on my way to bed and snuggle her.  She is so beautiful.

The story on Siouxsie is this:  Sunday she made it overnight which was a little surprising because they sort of implied she was going to need oxygen (which would have cost $4,000!), but fortunately she didn't.  She started eating again on Sunday morning so that was a very good sign.  She continued to make improvements during the day on Sunday and I picked her up Monday morning to take her back to our vet.  Edison started doing worse on Monday so he joined her at the vet.  Both got x-rays.  Siouxsie's didn't look much improved, but Edison's were close to clear so he was discharged.  Siouxsie stayed at the vet to continue her IV antibiotics, nebulizer treatments, and coupage therapy.   Finally on Tuesday, all of the test results were in and the official diagnosis of mycoplasma was given.  This meant a change in antibiotics because mycoplasma doesn't respond to the ones Siouxsie was on (Clavamox) as well as others (doxycyline).  We discussed changing Ed's too, but since he was doing okay, the vet said keep him on the current course because doxy can be harder on their stomachs.  By Thursday, Edison started being much more lethargic and runny-nosed so we went ahead and changed him to doxy. 
Thursday evening, Siouxsie was finally released from the vet!  Evie was so excited to have her home, she said it made the house feel right again.

Saturday we had an outdoor Advent party at the church, socially distant, of course.  The kids made crafts and the adults did some ornament making and charades.  Evie enjoyed getting to play on the playground with other children.  Bless her heart, who knew that would be something we had taken for granted....

When we got home, we had hot chocolate and decorated the Christmas tree.

This year is so different with not being able to do so many things we are used to doing this time of year...  I hope we will remember how hard this year was so we always appreciate what we have.