Downtown Disney and the Pox Continues

The rest of the week after Christmas was filled with pox, pox and more pox. Jon kept breaking out for a couple days as well as fever, vomiting, dizziness and just feeling pretty darn awful. I will never forget sitting by him and putting a straw into his mouth just so he didn't have to move to drink water. It was terrible. I've never seen him that sick and hope I never have to again! I continued to take care of him and juggle taking care of Josh (SO thankful this all happened while at home with my doctor dad and mom who doesn't let anything phase her as well as my sisters who kept Josh VERY entertained!) and by the weekend Jon was able to sit up and eat…well if you count applesauce as eating.

Adult chicken pox is like 100 times worse than chicken pox as a kid. Jon might say it's 1000 times worse. Just to give you an example of how bad it was…here's a picture of my sweet pox covered husband.

Yeah…this was right before it got really bad

Just looking at this makes me itchy

Pretty much my reaction too

My job was to disinfect e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g

 After a weekend filled with applesauce, water, gatorade, oatmeal baths and lots of sleep for Jon he was feeling better but still VERY contagious and under strict confinement. He was luckily able to work remotely and his bosses told him to stay very far away under the doctor declared him well again.

I on the other hand needed to get out of the house…and so did everyone else. So…we made sure the patient would be ok on his own for a while and we fled the coop on New Year's Eve. A trip to Downtown Disney for Wolfgang Puck's tortilla soup, a boat ride over to Port Orleans Resort for Beignets, and lots of shopping and Wubba's first carousel ride was just what the doctor ordered for the pox less people. It was SUCH a fun day! (So sad Jon had to miss it!) Here's some pictures!

When Your Husband Gets the Chicken Pox…part 2

Christmas morning arrived and my poor husband had gotten about 100 times worse overnight. (We would later discover that this wasn't even the worst of it). Spots everywhere. Fever. Dizzy. Unable to move. The good news…he wasn't itchy…yet...and no one else woke up with spots. I was more than a bit relieved.

I brought Jon all of his gifts and we planned on face timing each other so he could somewhat participate. I was so disappointed he was "missing" Josh's first Christmas but luckily Josh is still so little that he didn't even notice or care. But I did. And Jon did. We were both sad.

We opened stockings and gifts for hours on end. Squeals of delight ensued as my sisters opened barbies, books, clothes, purses, makeup and all things girly. Josh was more interested in the paper than anything else but it was adorable. I kept examining him for any sign of spots. So far so good.

Meanwhile, mom started making calls to the 30 family members who were planning on joining us later in the day for Christmas dinner, gingerbread house decorating and more gifts. We quickly realized none of that would happen. Even though most of the adults had chicken pox already risking bringing any kids over wasn't smart. Plus, since Josh and I had been around Jon so much the past few days there was a chance we had the virus and were contagious, even though we hadn't broken out yet. A lot of family members agonized over the decision to come or not…but everyone knew it was safer to stay away.

My poor husband had the best attitude of anyone. He never complained. NOT ONCE. In fact, I rarely hear my husband complain. It is one of his attributes that I most admire and wish to emulate. This situation was no different. He takes what befalls him and rolls with it. He's awesome.

I cried. Again. I was so sad we weren't going to see family. I was sad that Josh wouldn't get to see them. I was feeling guilty about "ruining" everyone's Christmas Day plans. I felt guilty about the 19 pound turkey that was in the fridge not to mention a ton of other food waiting to be cooked for the day's meal. And now…none of it was going to happen…because of us.

I knew it was no one's fault. Life happens. And sometimes part of life is chicken pox. Everyone else was laughing and trying to convince me it was no big deal. And looking back it really wasn't. But then and there in that moment it sure felt like the biggest disappointment ever. And there was nothing I could do to fix it (my go-to remedy when things go wrong). So…with the help of my family (and a couple cinnamon rolls) I laughed.

And we had a great Christmas. Pox and all.

Just a small sampling of the gift mountain

When you're the only boy (besides gamps and pox man) you sometimes end up with a barbie in your hands

No gluten free today!

Poor Jon locked away - this is when he still looked pretty good

Face timing daddy while we open our gifts

New stacking rings from Mimi

The sisters with their new Justice purses

A brand spankin' new whoop de doo DSLR camera. Unexpected and obviously I'm THRILLED! 

Wubba and Aunt Kristin

So many fun ornaments on this tree…homemade are the best!

Learning how to operate this thing

Cute stocking for Wubs from Mom Jo

Mom Jo opening some pictures of Josh

Playing with new toys! This ball is my fave! 

Dancing to Lady Gaga on Just Dance 5

Our cute little elf

More to come on the progress of the pox, our trip to downtown Disney and more Florida adventures!

When Your Husband Gets the Chicken Pox…part 1

So as I mentioned we are in Florida with my family for Christmas/New Years. We have been looking forward to this time with them for months and literally counting down the days. The hardest thing about our move to Charlotte has been leaving my family and our church family so any chance we get to see them is highly anticipated.

We drove through the night on December 13th (Josh did GREAT!) and arrived exhausted around 2 am. We said our half asleep hellos and went to sleep. We spent the weekend just hanging out with one another and Josh LOVED all the attention he got from his aunties and Mimi and Gamps. Jon drove back to Charlotte on Sunday afternoon and would return later in the week. Josh and I had a blast hanging out with the girlies and Mimi and Gamps. We went to Kristin and Katie's Christmas gymnastics show, made people chow (a VanLue Christmas time tradition) and finished our Christmas shopping.

At the Christmas gymnastics show!

Making People Chow with my favorite little helpers!

 Jon drove back down late Friday night and that Saturday we headed out to some Disney hotels to look at the Christmas decorations. It was Josh's first trip to Disney territory and SO fun!

On the boat!

Beauty! She's getting so old!

My Leni girl

Posing in the Mickey ears at the Contemporary Resort

The Grand Floridian hotel - one of my favorites!

Brown party of three :)

Love them!

All the kiddos

Every year the Grand Floridian hotel has this life-size gingerbread house and they sell the BEST gingerbread cookies from it! Another tradition :)

I love our little family

Just being silly - or normal

Shopping shenanigans

My giggly boy

 On Sunday Jon and I got to play/sing on the worship team at Grace. It was so much fun being back doing what we love! We also had rehearsal for the Christmas Eve service which we were so excited about. Josh spent the day with Mimi, Gamps and aunties three and had a blast!

Around this time Jon mentioned that he was feeling tired (not unusual after making an 8 hour drive in the middle of the night and spending the following days at Disney and band rehearsal). He took some vitamins and went to bed early. No big deal.

Monday the parents and kids went to Disney for the day so we stayed home and finished wrapping and were lazy. My sweet husband (still not feeling that great but not really letting anyone know) watched Josh for the majority of the day so I could get everyone's gifts ready to go. I love watching him be such a devoted dad…it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

The next day (Christmas Eve) we had to be at the church for rehearsal at 12:30. Jon had told me that morning that he felt tired (now going on day 3 of him not feeling that great) so we got some Starbucks because that fixes everything right? We rehearsed, ate some lunch/dinner and prepared for the first (of 3) candlelight services starting at 4:00. I noticed Jon didn't eat much…very odd considering it was pasta and meatballs (definitely a man pleasing' type of meal). He said he just wasn't hungry. Hmm…

The last thing Jon likes the do is draw attention to himself so I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. Plus, the opening song of the service was pretty electric guitar heavy and thus if Jon didn't play the song wouldn't happen. Time to suck it up and play anyway.

And play he did!

The services went off without a hitch. That is until the end of the second service when Jon disappeared off stage during Oh Holy Night…totally unbeknownst to his wife who was just singing away.

After the vomiting guitarist returned to the stage he continued to play until the end of the service. Yeah. He's pretty awesome. He said he felt better so I figured it was simply a case of food poisoning or he was maybe coming down with some sort of virus. Ha…yeah it was some sort of virus all right.

Our family Christmas Eve photo before the diagnosis

With one more service to go he downed some water and prepared to rock out one more time. This guy loves, absolutely loves to play his guitar and especially with the amazing group of musicians at Grace. It takes a lot for him to say he can't play anymore. But sure enough…after the first half of the set he told me he was done. He was feverish, sweating, dizzy to the point of almost falling over and definitely coming down with something. I paged Dr. Dad to come check him out and about 3 minutes later he had a diagnosis.

"Jon…you without a doubt have the chicken pox."

Fear. Panic. Bewilderment. Sadness. What the @%$&?!?!

All of those emotions hit me like a ton of bricks. Chicken Pox? Really? What 28 year old gets the chicken pox? Then my mind started racing. What did this mean for Christmas? What did this mean for my almost 5 month old son? Jon had been with Josh all day yesterday…would Josh catch this wretched pox also?

The husband, now allowing himself to express just how bad he really felt, wrapped himself in a ballet blanket I happened to have in the car and turned the air on full blast until the last service was over and I could pack up his guitar gear. Poor guy. He was so sick.

Service finally ended. My mom took Wubba home to get Christmas Eve festivities going with the girls and I packed up all of the now pox infected guitar gear. Chicken Pox. So many questions were running through my head. "Why Lord? Why on Josh's first Christmas would you allow my husband to get chicken pox? Why when we have been aching to see family would you allow something that would prevent us from seeing them?" I cried. I whined. I complained.

Then I laughed. Just like my mom told me to do. "Find the joy in it" she said. There's always something to be grateful for in the midst of something hard. I didn't see it yet but I knew she was right because well…my mom is usually always right…especially in situations like these. So I drove the patient home and locked him away in Katie's room (which is pink with hot pink cheetah bedding by the way). Poor Jon was too sick to care much about anything.

I put Josh in his new Christmas pi's - another VanLue/Brown family tradition and we went to bed praying that sweet little Wubba wouldn't wake up the next morning with the dreaded pox.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

To be continued in part 2...