The Copeland Ramblings/

The dreaded amoxicillin

Last Thursday, the day of our latest ultrasound, Debra woke up with a sore throat and a dry cough. We carried on with our day, buoyed by the excitement of finding out the gender of our little one. We had a great day up in Owen Sound; we got to enjoy some time with Canaan (Emmaus was at school), see our baby and find out what his/her gender is (careful, don’t want to slip up and spoil the surprise!). We arrived home around 5pm and Debra crashed, sleeping until 9 or so. She woke up with her symptoms having worsened quite a bit. Her cough was more intense, her chest pain was terrible when inhaling and coughing, she had developed a fever and also had body aches. We talked about going to the ER or our doctor in the morning but finally around midnight we decided to call Telehealth Ontario. The Telehealth nurse told us to go to the ER, I guess they get jumpy whenever anyone mentions chest pain. Special thanks to my friend and fellow NTM missionary Jason Bechtel who came to our house at the drop of the hat to look after our boys. The doctor in ER was called in and after listening to her chest he felt that it was just a virus and to go home and rest. A little disappointing as we were hoping to get something that would take care of her symptoms. Deb was in bed all day friday but didn’t seem to be improving at all. Friday night was rough, she didn’t get more than a couple hours of sleep and by this morning I could tell that we needed to do something. She had had a persistent fever and her cough was no longer dry. We called our midwives who told us to go back to the ER and after the typical ER wait of a few hours we saw a different doctor who felt that she did indeed have an infection. He decided to prescribe Debra Amoxicillin. If any of you followed Debra’s series of throat infections this spring, you’ll remember that while she is not allergic to it, she reacts severely to it. I’ll spare you the details, suffice to say it’s not pretty. Amoxicillin is the safest penicillin to take while pregnant and also the most effective. We prayed together before she took the first pill, that God would suppress her normal reaction to that drug and help her keep it down. I have to be honest, I really didn’t expect her to keep it down, but it’s been a few hours now since she took it! Thank you Lord! She still feels terrible and nauseous (probably a combo of morning sickness and the amoxicillin) but I’m encouraged that it’s in her system doing its job.

Keep praying with us that as she continues to take this medicine that it will stay down and take care of her chest infection.

In anticipation of our fun announcement on Christmas, here is a picture of our baby taken this past Thursday. You can see the rest of them here. Be sure to tune in on Tuesday to find out the gender and name!

On this day..

• President Lansana Conte of Guinea - 2008
• Heart Beat at 26 1/2 weeks - 2005
• We're Here! - 2005