103.5 Degrees

Poor Abby. As you may recall, both girls were on antibiotics for 10 days because of a nasty bug, which for Abby included a double ear infection. We finished up the antibiotics last Saturday. Although their noses were still a little runny, even after 10 days of medicine, I didn't think much of it.

That is, until yesterday.

Abby just didn't seem like herself at storytime. She didn't dance and sing. She didn't want to play afterwards.  When we got home, she felt a little warm and sure enough...she had a fever of 102 degrees. She wouldn't eat. She didn't want to drink. After almost force feeding her one spoonful of soup last night, she threw it right back up. By 11pm, her temperature was 103.5.  Nothing was bringing it down.

I took her to the doctor first thing this morning and sure enough...she still has a raging ear infection. Dr. P said on a scale of one to five (5 being the worst), her right ear was a three and her left, a SIX.  Poor thing has a red and irritated throat too. Apparently this nasty little bug was able to hold it's own against ten days of Amoxicillan.   

All I have to say is bring it on, little bug.

We're armed with Augmentin now.
 

What were you doing on January 29, 2009?

I was doing this.

But instead of dwelling on the past, I would rather think about the present...and how back on that day two years ago...I never in a million years expected that I would have two little redheads to love.  And my oh my, how different they are. 

But loved.
Oh so loved.
Just the same.

The Next Steps

We met with our new neurologist today. We loved him. He was awesome with Abby. He was awesome with us.

The long and short of it is that he concurred with our orthopedist's findings. So, not surprisingly, the next step is an MRI to confirm the diagnosis.  He suspects that at some time during my pregnancy or within the first few hours of Abby's life, she suffered from some sort of minor brain bleed. The awesome news is that whatever the damage, it appears as though it is extremely mild, which is surprising even to the doctor, given the complications I had during that pregnancy and her low birth weight.  The fact that she has hit her milestones (sitting, walking, talking, etc.) is reassurance that whatever we are dealing with is definitely on the mild side of the spectrum.

He wrote a prescription for PT so that we can go through our insurance and get started right away without having to wait the months that it might take to get through the CCS system (although we are hopeful that we will be accepted into CCS). And as I am sure any parent can imagine, I am horrified at the thought of having to put Abby under general anesthesia again.  It gives me some peace to know that this is just an MRI...it's not a surgery that she will wake up from in pain. I hope all she remembers is a nice little nap when it is over. But the hospital, the IVs, the going under...I was hoping we were done with that two years ago.  I don't know about you, but I can't believe we are 2 days away from the 2 year anniversary of her colostomy takedown and here we are, back at CHOC, with doctors and specialists and tests and therapies and worry and so on and so on.

But here we are indeed.

And I know I haven't had the chance to respond to everyone who has commented, texted, emailed, called...and I'm sorry, but your kindness and your prayers don't go unnoticed. Thank you so, so much for keeping our family, and more importantly Abby, in your thoughts and prayers.

It means the world to us.

Wordless Wednesday

(Better luck next season, Bears)

Breathe

It's been a tough week.

We've been couped up.

Sick.

Tired.

Sick of being sick and tired.

We needed some fresh air.

We got fresh air.

For a little while (at least), we got fresh air.

And for a little while, I didn't worry about our upcoming Thursday appointment with our new neurologist.

Blindsided

Let me preface this by saying that I have really been struggling as to whether or not I wanted to post this information. On one hand, I figure why not…I’ve shared just about everything else on this blog. On the other hand, this is a tough one to grasp and uncertainty is surrounding my family right now. And let’s face it…I don’t have many details yet and therefore maybe talking about it here is a little premature.

But sometimes, when my thoughts overwhelm me and I am too tired of talking about things out loud (and my husband is away at work for days at a time), the next best thing for me to do is to write my thoughts down.  With that said…

Ever since Tuesday I have been walking around feeling as though I had just been hit by a speeding train.  As we all know, Abby is just about 2 ½ years old. She has been through so much and has fought so hard. She is so awesome and big and strong and smart and pretty and our miracle TTTS survivor and when you look at her, you would never in a million years believe that she was ever a preemie, let alone one who went through what she did in the first 6 months of her life.

When we brought Abby home we were followed by CCS. She got 1 hour of physical therapy once a month for about a year, until we were eventually cut off, not only because of state budget cutbacks, but because Abby was doing so well, developmentally. She was also seen by early interventionists every 6 months and was discharged at age 2. Awesome.

Something I’ve always noticed is that Abby doesn’t quite walk on her right foot the same way she does on her left.  She seems to slightly ‘favor’ her right heel. I’ve kept my eye on it for a while now, and last week I started to think maybe we should have it looked at by an orthopedist. I didn’t think she was injured. I just remembered that before she started walking she was definitely pigeon-toed in the right foot, but it certainly didn't get in her way. I just thought maybe he could prescribe a little physical therapy. No big deal. After all it couldn't be anything major.  The previous therapists didn't notice anything. The early interventionists at EDAC didn't notice anything. Our pediatrician didn't notice anything.

So I made an appointment and Tuesday we went to see the doctor.  He took us into the hallway to play with a ball. He wanted to see her run. She ran.  Then he did a little examination…checked her reflexes and stretched her out a bit. Then he looked at me and said…

“She doesn’t have an orthopedic problem”.  (you may have heard my giant sigh of relief)

He said:

(cue the speeding train)

“It’s a neurological one”.

Can we just live in a bubble?

I know everyone gets sick during the wintertime. But my kids were preemies.  Their lungs aren't nearly as developed, even at their ages, as full-term kids the same age. So going to indoor, confined spaces...is usually not a good thing.

Case and point:

Poor Lilly. After a night at Pajama Storytime and a morning at the gym running (or in Lilly's case, crawling) on trampolines, mats, balance beams, ladders and slides, this is what Lilly looked like.

Next thing you know we have runny noses, coughing, fevers and oh my...PINK EYE.

Both girls are now on antibiotics and even though we thought Lilly was the "sick one", we were surprised to find out today that Abby has a double ear infection.

Seriously, can we just live in a bubble?