My birthday ER visit

First, I'd like to congratulate myself for staying updated with this blog so far this summer. I totally fell off the blogging bandwagon after Simone died. I have had a lot going on the last year, and have basically been in survival mode. 

But this blog has been a history for our family. It helps us remember things we otherwise would have forgotten, the kids adore when I read entries, and I love going back and reading details about my babies, all the way back to my pregnancies with them and their precious births. So, I've been trying to make a real effort to record our story here. For us. 

And so begins the eighth week of summer fun. It all started with me waking up at midnight on my birthday. I woke up because my eye was in such excruciating pain that I couldn't sleep. Around 2 that afternoon, Easton pointed to me and said enthusiastically, "I love YOU!!!" It was sweet and cute, except he poked me very hard in the eye.  I just covered my eye and breathed deeply for a while, keeping my eyes shut. I quickly felt Easton's little arms around me and heard his sweet voice telling me, "mama, I'm sowwy, are you okay???"

Hours later, it still felt like I had sand and grit underneath my eyelid, rubbing across my eye. It was red and constantly tearing up. I couldn't stand it. I am not exaggerating when I say that the only thing more painful than this has been childbirth. And even the pain of childbirth never made me cry. I also was feeling sorry for myself about the possibility of spending the night in the ER on my birthday, worried about whether or not I'd get back in time to prep for Gabriela's party, what if I missed it?!

I called my brother, Matthew, who came immediately from oakland to take me to the hospital. It only took four hours for them to tell me what I already suspected. That my cornea was scratched and that I needed prescription eye drops. 

Unfortunately, I was in tears and just as much pain when I returned home as when I left to go to the hospital. They gave me my antibiotic drops at the hospital, but just a prescription for the pain relief drops so we had to wait until 9am to get them. I could not even open my eye. 

I got a few hours rest in the early morning, got my pain relief drops, and took some Tylenol so I could finish cleaning house, and getting ready for G's party. 

Lane got me an eye patch to help me keep my eye shut all day. It was really helpful. I decided I would be Mad Eye Mommy instead of Mad Eye Moody for Gabriela's Harry Potter party. 

Everything went splendidly and then, after our last guests left, I crawled into bed, while Lane took care of our kids, he served me dinner in bed and I stayed there for 14 hours. Hey, I had two nights of sleep to catch up on!  

It was kind of a sucky way to start my birthday. I mean, when some of the first people to wish you happy birthday are the triage nurses, it's a little disappointing. But I'm grateful that my brother was able to help me out and keep me company. I'm grateful this happened to me, and not my kids. They would have been in hysterics. I'm grateful that we were still able to give Gabriela to party she and I had been planning for a while now. And, I am okay.  I had visions for a moment of not being able to see our new baby or homeschool our children anymore because of my ruined vision. 

So watch out everyone, and keep your children's fingernails far, far away from your eyeballs. And if they get you, make sure you have some awesome people to take care of you because that makes all the difference. 

Back to the Emergency Room

Last night we were supposed to go to a Kindergarten info night (For real, people. My baby is going to freakin' kindergarten).  I had us all packed up and ready to go. Lane walked through the door, and Easton, who is quite the walker/runner these days, fell down right in front of me.

Poor baby started crying so I picked him up, hugged him, held him close to my chest, told him he would be okay. Then I extended my arms to look at him and, much to my surprise, blood was dripping down his whole little face.  I knew he fell hard and it upset him, but I didn't think he was injured.  When I saw all the blood I first thought maybe he hit his face harder on the ground than I thought and got a bloody nose, but then I saw the deep puncture in his sweet little forehead.

Lane got all Dexter and checked for blood and he saw some on the floor, right at the corner of the baseboard.  Easton fell so hard on it (right in front of both of us) that it just put a hole in his head. We both knew we would be going to the ER instead of Kinder info night.

He settled down quickly and was more upset with us for trying to put ice packs on his head than he was about his actual injury. Pretty soon, Easton was signing "Please" for my phone and eating apples, so I knew he was okay, but that he needed something to help seal his head back up.  We packed up some craft supplies, Christmas books, and hand sanitizer and got ready for a long evening at the Emergency Room.

Thank goodness Easton wasn't feeling bad. Gabriela was an angel.  She colored and read books with her Daddy and we brought some reading puzzles for her to do (she is sounding out words now, this girl!). But all those things got old after a while.  I kept her busy by asking her how many times she could jump in a row (88) and taught her how to do jumping jacks in the waiting room.

Lane took Gabriela to go get a snack when she started complaining about being hungry. I knew they'd have to go to a vending machine and fully expected her to come proudly prancing back with a bag of Doritos or something.  She came back saying, "Mom!  All that was there was JUNKY food!  Really! Like Cheetos and chips!!"  She chose a cereal bar. I was both surprised and proud of her.

It was so weird when we were called back to the room. It was like flashbacks to last time we were there.  I just remembered the room we were in the last time (for Easton's catheter and blood drawing and IV), and the moment Lane came through those doors just minutes after I called his work to ask him to come be with me. And then the same doctor came in who gave me the meningitis-we-might-have-to-do-a-spinal-tap-on-your-2-month-old talk.  It was upsetting to have all those memories rushing back. 

This time, Easton had to get strapped up in a baby straight-jacket. He was furious about it.  I thought maybe he might calm before the storm if I was able to nurse him in there, but he was too upset. Then they covered his head so he couldn't see, so they would only see the wound they were working on.

I kept it together long enough to talk to him throughout the procedure but totally cried as soon as it was done. Easton was frantically doing his milk/mama sign the instant his hand was freed. He immediately calmed down when he was in my arms, and then really relaxed and fell asleep as soon as I started nursing him.  Poor, poor baby.

But even on the way home, he was back to his normal, sweet and cheerful self.  Now, he just has a giant goose egg, a bruise, and two stitches to go along with it.

So now we have been to the ER twice with each kid.  I think that we are good for a few more years. You hear that kids??? 

No more injuries allowed.

  

Easton's First ER Visit

On Sunday of last week, Lane's parents came up for dinner.  After they left, I note to myself that Easton just wasn't as smiley as usual.  That night, he woke up several times during the night crying - also very unusual, and he had a really low fever.  I felt like I was overreacting a little, but we rushed to the pediatrician drop in hour first thing Monday morning.  "Hi, my infant was crying during the night."

I didn't feel as silly when poor little Easton vomited bright green bile in the patient room at the dr. office. He was so irritable the entire time that the doctor advised we take him to the emergency room at Children's Hospital.  In fact, she called the attending doctor and told us they were waiting for Easton.

I made some phone calls from the dr. office, dropped Gabriela off with Heather (thank goodness fr friends in town), and headed to the ER in my baby vomit clothes. The doctor mentioned that Easton might have a urinary tract infection, so I thought the hospital would confirm, give us a prescription for meds, and we'd be on our way. No need for Lane to come, we'd probably be done before he'd get home.

After we got to a patient room the attending ER physician came in the room to have a talk with me. Based on Easton's symptoms. he could have a UTI, an abdominal obstruction, a blood infection, pneumonia, or ...  meningitis.  Yeah, you know that sickness that people die from? I know of two people who have died from meningitis, and of course this was what I immediately thought of.  The only way to know for sure, they explained, was to do a spinal tap on my sweet little boy.   They would hold off to see if his condition improved or if they identified a different problem with some other tests.  But they warned that it was possible that Easton could have, for example, a UTI and meningitis and this could not be ignored.

So off they sent Easton and his freaked out mama for an ultrasound. Since Easton was throwing up, they wanted to see if he had an intestinal blockage. If so, they would give an air enema to clear it up.  If that didn't do the trick, he would need surgery.  No reassurance here.  At least Easton loved his ultrasound. He smiled and cooed through it all.  I needed to see my happy baby back.

Of course, there was no cell phone coverage at all in the hospital and it was clear that Lane should have been there. The nurses kindly showed me to a phone ... that wouldn't dial to 408 area code. I called Lane's work and broke down when they told me he was on his way to me. Only moments later he walked through the doors, and that's when I really broke down in tears.

Next the really awful stuff happened.  Easton had a catheter inserted to test for a UTI.  His face turned bright red, his eyes bulged out and he screamed like I've never heard before in his life.  Easton was looking right into my eyes and I felt like I had betrayed him, by letting him suffer like this, unable to explain anything. Since they hadn't yet ruled out the abdominal problems, I wasn't even allowed to nurse him.  Because of this, there were only a few drops of urine to be collected, not even enough for the test.

As if this wasn't traumatic enough for our whole family, Easton needed to have blood drawn from his tiny veins for cultures.  The nurses turned the lights out completely, put a flashlight on Easton's hand and traced his veins.  Then they just poked where the drawings were. Easton thrashed around and screamed again.  I cried again.

He was about to get an IV, when they heard that not enough blood had been collected for the culture. So they drew more.  Easton reacted to his IV insertion like he did to his blood drawing.  Luckily, they were able to tape a urine collection bag to him to collect his next pee pee instead of redoing the catheter.  By now. they knew Easton did not have an abdominal obstruction so I finally got the okay to nurse him. Finally.

Easton peed a little later, and they tested his urine.  By now, he was calming down some, and it looked like a UTI was to blame.  Easton received some antibiotics through his IV and was starting to look better.  Because of this, the ER doctor in charge said we didn't have to do the spinal tap right away. If he was still as irritable as he was when we arrived, they would do one.  But they wanted to observe him for a few days in the hospital, where he would continue to receive the same antibiotics.  In the meantime, they would test the urine culture against other antibiotics so they would know which oral one to prescribe. 

So, Lane went home to pack some things for Easton and me.  And, lucky us, we got to ride in an ambulance to the other unit of the hospital where we would be staying. 

So the EMTs arrived to our room with the stretcher and hooked Easton up into their little carseat stretcher buckles and off we rode to the hospital.  No sirens, and Easton drifted off to sleep on the way.  Thank goodness for that.

We didn't get checked into our room until around 7pm. I have to say that the ER staff at Children's Hospital in Oakland were all very thorough, transparent with the info they had to share, and responsive. Even if it was totally traumatic.  Poor little guy would burst into tears if anyone dared touch his arms the rest of the day.  

Fever Baby

Poor little Gabriela has been feeling clingy and hasn't had her regular appetite for a few days now. I was just commenting on this to Lane on Friday evening, while Gabriela napped in the early evening - very strange for her.

She woke up from her little rest and was burning hot. We stripped her down, gave her fever medication, put her in a lukewarm bath, gave her a cold smoothie to drink and after all that her temperature was.... 104.5!! We were extremely worried, and as expected, the nurse recommended we take Gabriela to the ER.

When we got there, they recorded Gabriela's temp at 105.3. scary. Poor little thing just wanted to be cuddled. Since her temp was so high, they took a urine sample (with a catheter) to test for kidney infection. They also swabbed her nose to test for H1N1. But of course, they just say for "the flu" like it's worse if you actually say H1N1. I say call it as it is. And, they did chest x-rays for pneumonia. The urine test results were fine, and the x-rays were fine too. The H1N1 test came back negative, but they say the test is extremely inaccurate. The CDC recommends that anyone under 2 with symptoms should be treated with tamiflu, so after 4 hours of waiting for her temp to go down, we left with at prescription for tamiflu and hopped into bed at 3 am.

Saturday night Gabriela had a fever again. And she still has a big cough. I'm staying home with her today. It's a good thing too because at 9:30 am she got all cuddly and fell asleep for a nap after a full night's rest. poor baby.

1 Year Dr. Visit and more...

Gabriela had her one year vaccinations on Thursday. She weighed in at 19.3 lbs. and is 30.5 inches long. Gabriela continues to be very tall and very skinny. She did pretty well for her shots.
But the next morning, we noticed a few red welts on her back. We weren't really sure what it was, but considering that she'd just gotten her shots Lane took her to the doctor that morning. They said she was having an allergic reaction and advised us to give her some over the counter allergy medicine to help out.

Now, after a whole day of giving medicine would you imagine that Gabriela would get better or worse? Imagine how we felt waking up to THIS baby:

The rash had spread all over her entire body. It was bright red and the skin was swollen like little welts. Off to the emergency room we went. Our very first time! We decided to go to the Children's National Medical Center in DC. We were there forever, but we came prepared with lots of books and baby snacks.

One thing we were grateful for was that Gabriela was her normal happy self. She was giggling and playing and didn't seem to be bothered by the rash. When the doctor finally saw us, she said that Gabriela was definitely having a reaction, however there really isn't a way to pinpoint what it is in response to. Usually rashes that happen in relation to vaccines don't appear until a week later and hers came the very next day. Gabriela was recently taking amoxicillin, so it is possible that she reacted to that, but it's also possible she could be responding to something totally different. When she's older, she can go to an allergist to be tested, but for now, we need to tell the doctor that it is possible that she may be allergic to amoxicillin.

The good thing is that Gabriela didn't have anything else going on. The doctor told us it was a great sign that she's happy, playful and has her appetite. Sometimes kids can get sores in their mouth and have problems with their joints, and Gabriela doesn't have any of these symptoms. She just advised us to continue giving the allergy medicine, to keep her out of the sun or anything else that could further irritate her skin, and also said that the rash could last as long as a week. Thank goodness she confirmed that it isn't anything contagious either.

Unfortunately, we missed Francesca's birthday party to hang out in the ER all day. We are glad that it isn't anything serious though, and also that we had this adventure this weekend instead of next Saturday when we will be moving!!!