Sleepless Night

Everyone tired last night early bed.  We were in bed by 1030.  Ruthie started coughing as badly as ever and we were up until after 1 am trying to get her comfortable. Finally Earlene figured out some arrangement that got her to sleep.  I was so frustrated and upset by the whole thing Earlene gifted me by taking Ruthie out of the room and giving me some space to rest.  I took some homeopathic sleep medicine that relaxed me but gave me dreams weaving past and present together and elements of the Mark Chadborne book I'm reading about a supernatural Elizabethan England so I woke up in horror at one point.  Fortunately the morning is bright and shiny and Ruth woke up pretty easily once she saw the golden sunlight and got excited about seeing her daycare teachers and the scooters, and the tire swing, and the painting and all the fun things she does at the Child Care Center.  She picked some dandelions the had lost all their fluff in the rains and gave them to me.  Star shaped things, elegant in their stark beauty.

We feel so powerless when these coughing spells come over Ruthie.  As it's been for about two years now there are not day time symptoms or any other symptoms except a persistent and exhausting night time cough.  No medication has any impact on her except sometimes to relax her and we haven't been able to trace any dietary change that makes any lasting impact.  The allergist told us this was a non-allergic cough and we would just have to deal with it when she is afflicted occasionally, but it's endlessly difficult when there is nothing we can do for her.  My mind raced over the past few days wondering what could have triggered it and then allowed it to persist.  We were around dogs this weekend but the cough has only gotten worse since we got home so that doesn't seem to add up.

On to another day of working the database from the cave.  Tomorrow I think I'll be in Seattle and Tacoma, although the Seattle trip is feeling rather distant right now.  Hard to imagine the drive tonight and the traffic tomorrow for a 90 minute workshop on prospect research.  Maybe I'll bail on that one and just go to Tacoma for the Board meeting.