Life Lately

this week we... 

PEAKS:

• I'm constantly surrounded by the most amazing people, so kind and completely selfless. Monday and Tuesday Fallon watched my little ones so that I could focus on that endless pile of clean clothes I've been avoiding. Kim invited me over Wednesday so that I could get out of the house and helped tire out my kiddos. and Crystal came over this morning and helped me with the rest of the laundry! What amazing friends I have!
• I got rid of a lot of my accessories at our dinner social Friday night. It was kind of hard letting go of some things, but once I did it turned out being pretty liberating.
• I made brownies! ...I've been on a junk food frenzy lately.

PITS:

• Lincoln and Ella both have an ear infection and I know I do too I just don't want to make a trip to the doctors for myself with these two.
• The kids have been really sick and vomiting all weekend. Friday night, while at a dinner social, Ella threw up all over my friends floor. Then as we were driving  home Lincoln threw up in the car. They slept for a couple hours, then once I finally went to bed the madness continued. Poor Ella woke up with a bad fever and threw up all over me and my bed and pillows. We got in the bath and she cooled down a bit. She was completely restless so we went down stairs at 1:30 am and played around a bit. I finally got her to sleep around 2:45 and right as I'm sneaking into bed, my poor Lincoln woke up with a high fever as well. He was also restless so we went down stairs for a little. His fever diminished because he is so good about taking his yummy tasting Tylenol, and he went back to sleep. Ella still had a fever and was up the rest of the night. Needless to say, I was up all night alternating between them and it doesn't make it easier considering I've been sick these past few weeks as well.
• This has been another very long week for me... I just want my husband home!
• I made brownies... I've been on a junk food frenzy lately...
 

My Poor Little Ella

     Poor little Ella has had a pretty hard week. On Wednesday November 30th, I notice Ella was really hot. I knew she must be running a really high fever but I didn't have a thermometer. I decided to take Chris to work that day so that I could have the car in case I needed to take her to the doctors. So at 6 am we loaded the kids into the car and took Chris to work. Thankfully there is a 24 hour CVS pharmacy right by our house so I stopped by to pick up a thermometer and infant Tylenol. I checked her temperature and it was 102.4, I knew that wasn't good. I called the doctor as soon as they opened and they scheduled to see her at 2 pm. So here I am with 2 little ones at our first visit to the doctors out here in Virginia. Ella is so tired and crying, Lincoln is screaming, then crying, then throwing himself on the ground, and I just can't wait for the doctor to come in and send us back on our way. Doc comes in and checks out Ella and since the only symptoms she is showing is a fever, the doctor wants to do a blood test (which I don't mind. I'd rather be overly cautious than sorry). The nurse comes in and pricks Ella's finger. She had trouble getting much blood so she tries again. By this point Ella is crying so hard and on top of that she is so tired and hungry. They test the blood but think there was an error so they come back for more blood. This time it was a heel prick. Results are the same and it turns out her white blood cells are more than double what it should be. Something about normal is around 15 and hers are around 38. Meaning there is some type of infection her little body is trying to fight off and now we just need to find the source of the problem. The doctor was very concerned and told me to drive straight to the ER and that she already called them to be expecting us. I feel so overwhelmed with two screaming kids, I have no way of contacting Chris, I have no idea where I'm going, and I hope my baby is okay!

      I made a few wrong turns but I finally made it to the hospital and they see Ella immediately. There are four nurses and a doctor surrounding her and a stream of questions being asked to me. They check her temperature (still 102). They insert a catheter to collect a urine sample to check for a UTI. They do a nasal swab to check for the flu. Then chest x-rays are done to rule out any infections there might be in there. Then they scare me with wanting to do a spinal tap to check for any other infections. Before they do that they want to take more blood to test that out also. My little 12 pound baby has already had it hard when they start searching for blood. The nurses prick the top of both her little feet and ankles, both her arms in four places and still can't get a vein. They were able to get an IV into the top of her hand but no still no blood (I don't know how that works). Poor Ella is crying so hard, it looks like her eyes are going to bulge out! And Lincoln is still strapped in the stroller screaming and crying. I stand back and let the nurses do there thing while I try to entertain Lincoln. Once the IV is in they let me hold her and she goes right to sleep. She's been so tired from the beginning. Now Chris is out of work and I was finally able to get a hold of him and one of his buddies gave him a ride to the hospital. While Chris and Lincoln go for a walk and get some food, the ER doctor comes in and is talking to me about transferring Ella to a children's hospital about an hour away to spend the night. They still need to do blood work so a nurse comes in and tries to draw blood from the IV again and nothing. Another nurse comes in and pricks her other heel to squeeze blood out, all while I'm holding my little baby looking into her sad eyes. It broke my heart. After about 4 hours, the doctor comes in and says they found bacteria in her urine, I shout "that's a good thing!" Yes, because now they won't to a spinal tap and the can treat the problem. No because this could lead to permanent scaring of her kidneys. He sends us home for the night and tells me to return to Ella's pediatrician in the morning.  

     Another early morning driving Chris to work. 11 am I take Ella to her doctor and they want to give her an injection of the antibiotic. Her thighs aren't "meaty" enough  so they decide to divide it into two injections, one on each leg. Once that's done, we have to wait around for another 20 minutes just to make sure she doesn't have an allergic reaction. (I have Lincoln with me and he's throwing a fit while Ella's crying). We get sent home with a prescription and order to get an ultrasound of her bladder. I get a call later that night from a nurse telling me that they also found bacteria in her blood. That does not sound good! I have to take her back to the Hospital to draw more blood. It's Friday night around 7 pm so I pick Chris up, drop him and Lincoln back off at home then drive Ella straight to the hospital. The whole way I'm praying that they find a vein on the first try so that she doesn't have to suffer too much. My sweet little girl, she's always so calm and happy in my arms. I lay her down on the table and she locks into my eyes. I can tell she knows what's coming. Two nurses come in and and the call for back up just in case they can't find a vein. First try and they found a vein! I pick her up right away and she falls asleep immediately. Time to go home and get some rest. On the way home I pick up the prescription and it's the wrong one. The pharmacists insists it's right so I just take it and leave. The next morning I call the doctor about the prescription, and sure enough they gave me the wrong medication. Good thing I didn't give it to her. I go back to the pharmacy and pick up the right one. Later that night I got a call from the ER doctor and he wants me to use a different prescription, so now I'm off to pick that one up and it's a week of meds for her.

      On December 15th Lincoln and Ella both have their well baby visit. They took another urine sample and everything seems much better with her but she still needs to keep her ultrasound and VCUG appointment. Monday the 19th we head off to the Stafford Hospital early in the morning. I'm told it will be a four hour visit so I came fully prepared with lots of snacks and toys for Lincoln. First, an ultrasound of her bladder and kidneys. Then under the x-ray machine for the VCUG. The procedure consists of inserting a catheter up into her bladder and they slowly dispense a fluid into her bladder that can easily be seen by the x-ray machine. Once her bladder is full, the doctor watches to see what happens when she urinates. It was as they suspected, When she pees some of the urine goes back up (reflux) exposing her to urinary infections and she could possibly need surgery to fix that. Ella's pediatrician wants to see her again the next day to take another urine sample (via catheter) and explain things to me in person. She said it rated on a scale from 1 to 5, 5 being the worst and definitely needing surgery. Ella's case is so mild, they rated it at a 1 (phew!) and said in most cases like this it will resolve on it's own but she might have to be on medication in the mean time. So next month we will be seeing a Urologist who will look further into into her ultrasound and x-ray pictures and tell us where to go from there.

      My little Ella has been such a trooper through this whole thing. She is still full of smiles. I'm so thankful that everything is turning out to be just fine and I constantly pray that she will continue to grow strong and healthy! (and my lillte Lincoln has been so great too)!

[baby girl], Be Patient!

Well, i was having intense stomach pain all day and it had been getting progressively worse throughout the day. I finally decided to go in to labor and delivery at 10:30 pm. (I'm actually in the hospital writing this through my phone right now.) The pain is constant and its becoming unbearable. The doc takes a swab test to see if it comes  back positive for preterm  labor. While we wait for the results, they give me an I.V to hydrate me, nausea medication (i still threw up), and pain killers. The results are back and at 1 am, I get the news that it came back positive. Doc isn't too worried but he's keeping me over night to keep an eye on things. So here i am laying in a hard hospital bed blogging rather than getting sleep. [Baby girl] sounds healthy, I'm just praying that she doesn't come too early and that everything will be okay with her.

Poor Little Guy Can't Catch a Break

     Lincoln had been having a cough for a while and I finally decided to take him in to see the doctor. I expected the usual "oh it's just going around... it'll pass." Good thing I took him in... His oxygen level was really low and right when the doctor came in the room he had him use a nebulizer in hopes of opening him airway. Turns out he had bronchitis. They gave me a nebulizer to take home and use on him about every 4 hours. When he would play and crawl around I could hear how hard he was wheezing. It was pretty scary. On top of that, he had an ear infection and had to take an antibiotic twice a day. If that wasn't enough, the very next day he fell off our bed, almost 4 feet high! Fortunately all he had was a scratch on the side of his face. (You can see the little red mark in the next picture, it's by his eye and eyebrow.)

     Saturday night around 11 o'clock I noticed his breathing was very shallow. He was coughing, wheezing, and heaving and not inhaling very much so Chris and I decided to take him to the doctors. Since it was a week end night, the only thing open was the ER. Luckily they saw us right away.  

     Here we are in the ER using his nebulizer which is just a machine that vaporizes medicine in order to open up his airway. He did pretty well with the nebulizer as long as he got to play with it. It soon turned into Sunday morning. My mom knew he wasn't doing well the night before, and so she met us there at 1 in the morning with food for us. She's the greatest support!

     The doctors wanted to take chest x-rays of him to make sure everything was okay. We sang to him the 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' while he was getting his x-rays and he did a great job of staying still. We waited another hour or so for the results and they told us that there is an abnormality in his x-rays! Of course that worried us right away, but we were not expecting the dreadful news we were about to get.

      They showed us his x-rays and told us that it looks like he has an enlarged heart.

     That was the last thing on our mind, that something could be wrong with his heart! So many things were going through my mind and I was just trying to hold back tears. They did some other tests on him for his heart but everything else came back perfectly fine. 

     They made an appointment for us to go in the following day (Monday) and from there we would see a specialist. It felt like the longest wait of our lives.

The doctor was explaining things to Chris and I and he said that he and the radiologist looked over his x-rays and everything seems to be fine. Apparently it was just his "thymus shadow" that was making it appear like his heart was bigger than it actually was. He said that in babies the thymus is pretty big but when they're sick it swells and gets bigger. As you get older the thymus shrinks down and becomes an organ that hides behind your heart. Phew! So it was just a BIG scare! We're going to take x-rays again at his 9 month visit when his cough is completely gone just to make sure everything really is okay. 

      The VERY next week Lincoln broke out in hives. It looked like a bunch of bug bites all over his body, but it progressively got worse. Turns out it was an allergic reaction to some food he had the day before. I took a picture to keep an eye on it and to compare whether it was getting better or worse. That night it got worse and spread even more.

     You can see the rash was really bad on his under arms and later it almost covered his whole stomach then sped to his neck and eyelids. It cleared up the next day so I was glad about that!

     Not to mention he is constantly falling and hitting his head on the tile floor. He just doesn't give up, no matter how many times he hurts himself he still insists on pulling him self up to stand and climbing up what ever he can find! Is this just the the beginning to our trips to the ER?? Maybe these are just the "perks" of having a BOY! One things for sure, he's definitely a tough little guy...