Juliette- 6.5 Months Old!

Last week was a pretty difficult week for our family. Here is a little background. On Friday 2/22, I had a technical meeting that pretty much constituted the culminating effort of about two years of my research. Based on my innovation and performance in this "make or break" presentation, we signed a three year contract with one of the largest bio-pharma companies in the world. In the two weeks leading up to this meeting, I worked way too many hours in preparation. This is about an 85 million dollar deal that gave job security to our production personnel and resulted in a lower price tag on the life-saving anti-viral drug it is based upon. Saving jobs, saving lives, no pressure. Anyway, during the week leading up to this meeting, everyone got sick. Two days before it, Juliette became very sick. She had a high fever, lethargy and was in obvious pain and misery. Her doctor went through a relatively extensive clinical work-up on her. She even had to have a spinal tap to rule out meningitis (this was negative, thank goodness). Confident that she was in no immediate danger, he sent her home and we tried to control her fever and misery with motrin and tylenol, with a moderate amount of success. On Thursday night, she seemed to be doing better and though I was feeling sick myself, I planned to go to this meeting in the SF Bay area. When I left on Friday morning, she was awake and had even smiled a couple of times and played with me a little bit. So, I went to the meeting and it went very well. I was driving home and around 5pm I got a phone call from George. He asked me where I was and I told him that we were on the way home but probably still a couple of hours out due to heavy traffic. He said, don't worry, everything is OK now, but I am at the hospital with Juliette. Of course, I was like "WHAT????!!!!!?????" and he explained to me that around 2:30 that afternoon she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance due to respiratory distress. She was having severe fits of coughing and was unable to catch her breath. Talk about scary. So, I stressed and worried until I got home, which was the same time George, Juliette and my Mom got home from the hospital. Juliette had some codeine to control her coughing and was doing better, though still very sick. Over the weekend, we were all pretty sick, including my Mom, who came down with it Friday afternoon. My Dad was a hero, running back and forth between his house and ours, trying to make sure everyone was OK. I think it was a particularly nasty strain of influenza that we all had, because my Dad was the only one who had a flu shot and he was the only one who did not get sick. Anyway, a week later, we are all doing fine with just some residual runny noses to worry about. I took these pictures of Juliette, Sarah and Kate yesterday. They are fine now and Juliette is back to her happy, animated self. I am so thankful that she is OK . Health is such an important blessing that I pretty much take for granted until I or one of my family gets really sick. Thanks to my Mom and Dad for helping George and I out while I was working crazy hours. Thanks to Casey, who fasted for us last Sunday. It made a difference. Thanks to George for supporting me in all of my efforts and in my quest for knowledge and enlightenment.