25 months 9 days

Day 771. I went to bed just after midnight. During the night Tammy and Emmy joined us in bed, as usual. Tammy was up first, then Emmy, and they became pretty active, until I finally got up at 7:40 to make breakfast.

After breakfast I cleaned them up and dressed them, and put a shirt and pants on Emmy, then his shoes and jacket. Tammy wanted to be included. At 9 am the Mobile Therapy Support lady arrived. I filled her in on what had happened and that Emmy had to return to the hospital for a check up. She went downstairs with Sammy, and Randy closed the door behind me and Emmy. Tammy was crying, as she did not like to be left behind.

Emmy and I got on the subway, rode two stops, and after we got off, we first went to Billa to drop off our Corona test kits. Next stop was the pharmacy on the other side of the road. I had made an appointment for a rapid Corona test there so I could get into the hospital with Emmy. Only in case of an emergency, like it was on Saturday, can you enter the hospital without a negative test. When I entered the pharmacy, they told me that they only started testing at 10:30, and it was only just after 9 am. I asked whether the hospital which was on the other side of the subway track had any testing capabilities. They said no and said I could go to the top floor of their building where there was a doctor's office, and I could do the test there. So we took the elevator up and entered the doctor's waiting room which was full of people. I had to fill out a form and answer lots of questions, the last one being whether I intended to get vaccinated. They told me to sit down and wait to be called.

Emmy and I sat on a little couch-like seat. He was very cheerful and wanted to move. It didn't take long until I was called. I went to the back, they put the Q-tip in my nose, and told me to sit down and wait for the result. So we returned to our seats and a few minutes later I held the paper in my hand.

All this had taken time. Good thing we had left extra early. We crossed the street and went to the entrance of the hospital. We were let in and stood in line to be checked. I showed my test result, but the lady said I needed a PCR test and not an antigen test. I told her about the emergency on Saturday and that we were asked to come today and pointed out that it was impossible for me to get a PCR test result by this morning. She let us through.

We went upstairs and made our way to the eye emergency room. We registered and sat down to wait to be called. There were a lot of people waiting, not like it was on Saturday. And Emmy was ready to move. He started climbing over chairs and jumping off of chairs. After a while he saw a kid play a game on the other side of the row of chairs and went there. He started grabbing stuff from the game, and the other, older boy was very understanding and let him do so. He stayed there for a while, until what he was doing was threatening to damage the game, so I grabbed him and left with him, going to the other end of the room.

There were quite a few younger kids and babies there that interested Emmy. He also enterrained some of the Grandmas. One lady had an obviously painful eye, and Emmy was very concerned about her. Time was passing, and we were still not called. We had arrived exactly on time, at 10 am. It was 10:45, when Emmy was finally called in. I recognized the doctor from Saturday. I was holding Emmy on my arm, and we didn't even sit down. The doctor just looked at Emmy, saying that it was not infected and looking good, and that the bandaids would fall off by themselves and the string dissolve. We were only in the room for about a minute before he sent us on our way. All that effort for that!

We made our way back home where we arrived at 11 am.

Randy had just put a lasagna into the oven; something easy he could do as I did not know when I'd be back home. Sonja had already arrived, and Emmy went downstairs to be with her and his siblings. At 11:30 everyone came upstairs to eat. Once again Tammy ate nothing and Emmy very little. And Sammy did not like the lasagna. Emmy got to eat pudding, but not Tammy, who was pretty upset about that. I decided to let them play with the water, even though Tammy needed no cleaning up. All three of them had so much fun in the bathtub that they did not appreciate it at all, when we took them out of the water. I put the boys to bed, and Sonja went downstairs with Tammy.  Randy finally went to the grocery store.

By 12:15 I had the boys sleeping, but I did not make the mistake of getting Tammy, not yet. Instead I was working, even though I was really tired. At 1:15 I went to get Tammy and put her to bed. And with Emmy's sleep being light, he woke up. I did everything possible to get him to fall back asleep, and thankfully succeeded. But then he woke up again, and this time he was done, and so I took him downstairs to Sonja. Back upstairs, I finally got Tammy to fall asleep just minutes later. Miraculously Sammy had not woken up. After two hours, at 2:15, Sammy woke up and I immediately picked him up and took him downstairs, so that Tammy could continue sleeping.

And I continued working. Randy returned, and while we were talking, Tammy suddenly joined us. She had slept 2 hours, and our talking had woken her up. It was 3:40 pm, and I also took her downstairs. Her brothers had already eaten their snack, and I gave them some more food for Tammy. At 4 pm Sonja had to leave, and Randy stayed with them instead. At 5 pm I started making their dinner, which took me half an hour. At 5:30 I went downstairs to tidy up with them, and then we all came upstairs to eat. They ate a little at the table, and then ate most in the bathtub, all three of them. Some food was leftover. They were having fun with the water coming down from the shower head and were upset, when we got them out of the water. We got them ready for bed, and before 7 pm they were all in bed. Randy had to leave to pick something up, while I sat by their beds, trying to get them to sleep. And they were giving me a hard time again, though not as hard as other nights. Sammy fell asleep first, then Emmy, but Tammy made it very difficult again. I was glad when she FINALLY did fall asleep and I could go make my food and eat. I was still in the kitchen, when Randy returned. After I was done eating, I started working on the computer again. Once Randy came to look at something on my computer and sat down on the bed, doing the same thing Emmy had done a few days ago. He pulled on the computer cord which made my tea fall off the shelf and pour all over me and the bed. However, this time the tea was made hours ago and just warm, not hot like last time. It was just annoying but it made us laugh more than anything. I'm still hurting from last time, so I'd rather not get boiled again any time soon.

As time went on I got really tired again and struggled to write all this. Now it's midnight and I have yet to do all the cleanup.