medicine – Shay Thomason

I could probably summarize my day in just the title of this post: “Sleep and Vitamin C.” Essentially, that’s all I’ve done today is sleep and taking as much vitamin C as I can. I think today was worse than yesterday and my energy has just been completely sapped.

Last night I tried to find some NyQuill around the house, but we don’t have any. I thought we had purchased some in the States, but I guess I was wrong. We have had friends, even other Czechs, try to find that kind medicine here and they turned up nothing really similar to it. I don’t know if there are regulations or not against it over here, but man I sure could’ve used some last night. I ended up taking some Tylenol PM just to get some sleep which was helpful, but it’s just not the same as NyQuill.

We’ve gone back and forth today about whether we should chance going to Prague tomorrow or not. Unfortunately, the place we’re staying won’t allow us to change our reservation so I guess we’re planning on leaving tomorrow morning on the train. My other fear is that I’ll be stuck laying around and sick in bed. I’m hoping that rest tonight will be really good for me and that the Sudafed that I found will help me sleep.

As a family, I can think of no other time in our lives that we’ve been as sick as we have been in Czech Republic. I recognize that there are ebbs and flows to sickness in family, especially with young kids, but it sure does make it difficult. The past two days we have had to cancel our Czech lessons because I’ve been sleeping and our Czech teacher cancelled tomorrow’s lesson because she is sick!

I realize the common cold is temporary, momentary, and light, but when you fill up a trash can with tissues throughout the day it’s hard not to focus on anything but the moment. Despite all the sickness, I know I am supposed to keep my focus on Christ. Lord willing, I can do that better tonight and tomorrow.

The doctor is not in. That’s what Bethany, the kids, and our friend Kristin found out this morning after they walked to the pediatrician. The door was locked and there was a note explaining that the doctor was on holiday. Another doctor’s hours were posted (shown above), but of course that doctor didn’t hold hours during the time that our family happened to be there. They’ll try again tomorrow. Hopefully someone is there! Why were they going to the doctor, you ask? Good question.

Right before we moved to Czech, Titus had gotten a rash. It started as little red dots that ended up spreading under his arm. At first we thought it was eczema (which he has), but it got worse and worse until it spread on half of his chest and we took him to our doctor in the States who gave him antibiotics for some kind bacterial skin thing. Thankfully, after a few weeks it went away. We’re not exactly sure how he got it, but it was weird. Now, sadly, we think Avery has the same thing.

It started as one little dot on her face that we honestly thought was a mosquito bite (which we get a lot of here on warm days). But in the past couple of days it has spread to her shoulder and on to more of her face. You can see her face and shoulder in the photo above. For the most part it doesn’t bother her, but we’re trying to stop it before it spreads more. On Titus it got pretty bad, but it never got on his face. Hopefully we can get her to a doctor that understands what it is and can prescribe the right medicine for Avery. Please pray with us for this!

We had incredible weather today in Czech. To me, it was about as close to Southern California weather that I’ve seen since we’ve been here. There weren’t a lot of clouds, but there was a light breeze, and the temperature was very comfortable. I walked with a few people of our team to a lunch place today and took the above photo. Shortly after returning to the JV offices I sent out the leadership book we’ve been working on to the printer! This was a huge project and even there’s still a few things left to do I’m glad to have handed it off.

Tonight Bethany went with a few of the missionary girls over to a little Bible study. Most of the ladies there are part the international team that serves all of the countries that JV works in. Bethany said she really enjoyed herself and that she especially liked listening to the two Czech woman who attended. There’s something neat about listening to the way Czechs describe their faith and even though English may be there second language, it’s always impressive to hear them articulate their faith. I believe this will be a regular thing for her so I’m glad to stay home with our kids while she gets a little time out of the house.

And that’s exactly what I did tonight–spent time with Titus and Avery. We had dinner (which mommy made before she left!), played outside, played inside, took a bath, did Bible time, and finally got tucked in to bed. Those two are a handful, but it’s really fun to spend some dad only time with them.

Tomorrow we have a baby sitter coming in the morning so Bethany can join me for an international team meeting at JV. It’ll be the first one we’ve been to and it’ll be the first time we let a Czech girl watch our kids. We’ll see how it goes and you’ll be sure to know all about it when we return with full coverage on this blog tomorrow.