RSV in pics!

It was only day 3 and we were already exhausted!

Ah mom, what did they put up my nose?

Day 7 of RSV and day 2 in the hospital

Yay, the IV and nasal canula came out on day 3 in the hopsital

We are getting ready to bust out of the hospital on day 4!

Happy little man!

Day 21 of RSV and we are still rocking the nebulizer.

You read that right, day 21 and Jax is still sick.  I have to remind myself that he does sound better...he is only waking himself up once in the middle of the night and after the initial morning congestion he does sound better because man when he does get going he still sounds AWFUL.  From everything we were told and from what I have read this cough can last weeks and the congestion may very well be allergies.  

Oh, I forgot to blog about the hives!  Ahhh....Jax broke out in hives last week all over his legs from something in our house.  We put him on the floor without his pants on and not five minutes later did the kid have hives all over his bare legs.  I threw him in the tub and they were gone by the next morning.  A few days before this incident I talked to the pedi about allergies and we were wondering how much of this is allergy related and she agreed that since he is clearer when he stays at my moms for a few days that he should be tested at 6 months and this just further confirms that it needs to be done as soon as possible.

Gotta run! 

RSV sucks...

We have been battling RSV for the past week and a half.  It is a sucky, awful virus that causes a ton of mucus and it hits infants and the elderly particularly hard.  In toddlers and young children it usually turns into croup and for everyone else it is just a very nasty cold.   The real kicker about this virus is that it does not peak until anywhere from days 5-10 so once the fever breaks you think you in the clear but you so are not!


Last Monday I thought Jax just didn't sound right so I took him into the doctor.  As soon as she heard him cough she said she knew it was RSV.  She gave us a nebulizer, two prescriptions, and sent us over to the lab for the RSV/flu test.  We found out that night that it was RSV and that she wanted to see him every day to monitor his O2 levels.   By Wednesday his fever was gone and she said we didn't have to come back until Friday so we thought we were all good until I heard him when I came home from work on Thursday.  I knew something wasn't right but we had an appointment in the morning so we stayed put.   On Friday morning his O2 had dropped to 94 and we were admitted to Kent General so he could be given breathing treatments every 2 hours and be put on oxygen.  Let's just say that unless there is no other option we won't be going there again and at that time there was not, Christiana and AI were full of RSV and flu kids.  The tip of the iceberg for my complaints are that he didn't have his first breathing treatment in the hospital for five hours and they didn't put him on oxygen until he dropped to 89 that night and only then because I kept bugging them.


The one thing they did do when we got there was getting him a chest x-ray.  It turned out that he also developed RSV pneumonia so they started a course of antibiotics and inserted an IV for fluids.  So by Friday night the kid was getting oxygen, had in an IV, and had the pulse oximeter on his foot.  I had to swaddle him because he kept trying to pull everything out.  Jax is such a trooper, he rarely fussed, and everyone commented during our stay how cute and easy going he was.  That's my little man!


The IV came out on Saturday because he blew a vein and they were happy enough with his intake/output that they didn't have to put a new one in.  He stayed on oxygen until Sunday morning and had to be monitored for a full 24 hours off oxygen before he could be released.  By this time they moved his breathing treatments to every 4 hours and we started doing chest pt on him.  We were finally discharged Monday night although everyone was wishy washy about it.  If I had to do it over again I would have pushed to stay an extra night since I was so stressed about taking him home when the nurses and doctors weren't super definitive about their decision.  I had him back Tuesday morning to the doctors since because I didn't love his breathing over night and his O2 was a little low but not low enough to worry about it.  She explained that he is always going to sound worse when he first gets up and that it should clear throughout the day and it sure as shit did.  I was up with him at 3:30 this morning and he sounded pretty good.


Our little man isn't allowed back to daycare for a while.  Well, he could go but the doctor wants him home for at least a week, maybe two.  The reason for this is that his immune system is so shot from the RSV that he is going to catch every little virus that he comes in contact with and we don't want him back in the hospital so he needs to be in tip top shape before he starts again.   We were also warned that although immune this year, he can get RSV again next year and that even a bad cold could send us back to the hospital because of wheezing/oxygen levels.  The good news is that there is no family history of asthma so he may very well outgrow the wheezing while sick in the next 5-7 years and it will never turn into ashtma.  Or who knows he may be fine next year although with his troubles the first month of life with breathing I am guessing his bronchial tube is just super sensitive and inflames easily.  RSV can do some serious damage to the bronchial tubes but we are hoping that since he was on breathing treatments the whole time and in the hospital it will be minimal.  At the end of the day though there are worse things than asthma and with all of the new things out hopefully it won't be too much of a problem if he doesn't outgrow it.  


Chris and I now have the adult version of RSV and it is tons of fun!  I have been sick/having allergy issues for a month now, it is insane the amount of times I have been to the doctors.  I am now on a z-pack since the amox wasn't working, an inhaler, mucinex D, and a codine cough syrup that doesn't help much.  Chris starting taking airborne as soon as he felt the cold coming on and is doing much better already.  

2/4/11

I can't get over the fact that it is already February and I have a 4 month old.  Time is flying way too fast!

Jax had his 4 month check up on Tuesday and is doing great! His stats are as follows...
Height- 23.9 inches-6th percentile
Weight- 14 lbs 5 oz- 25th percentile
Head Circ- 42nd percentile

I take all of these measurements besides the weight with a grain of salt and here is why...they never do it right!  At AI Dupont last week they said he was a few mm short of 2 feet tall and when the nurse measured him he said he was only 23 inches.  When the doctor remeasured she realized the nurse was .9 inches off.  The head measurement is a whole other ball of wax, I almost laugh watching him the nurse to measure my kids noggin.  It is all so seamless when we go to AI so I take their measurements.

Jax is now officially a crib sleeper!  Daycare decided to transition him this week into his crib and he did great, he must have his dad's sleeping habits.  We have both mattresses propped up and he is doing well with his most recent cold and reflux issue.  I need to lower the mattress a little at home because he got himself sideways last night and rolled into the side of the crib.  Oops.  The only time he woke up after that incident at 9 was at 4:30 so I went in and gave him his bink and by the time I came back in with the bottle he was asleep on side and slept for another hour and a half.  Now we will only be using the rock n play for play at our house and when he needs to sleep at grandma's since it will still be a while before he can lay flat in the pack n play.

We are now also rocking solids as of our GI appointment last week.  Jax's favorite...sweet potatoes.  The child screams bloody murder if you take his sweet potatoes away before he thinks he should be done with him.  He has also had bananas and apples but he didn't like those nearly as much as he likes his oatmeal and sweet potatoes.  I love watching this kid eat!  Who knows why but I think it was such an easy transition since he has had thickened formula pretty much since day 1 so we have had no issues getting him to eat.

My period still hasn't stopped so that is a bit of an issue.  I went to the doctor for an ear ache last week and she decided to get some blood work done to see if there was anything more going on and to check my vitamin levels.  They came back and I am iron deficient, low on B12 and vitamin D.  There were a few other issues on there that the doctor chalked up to the overall hyperemesis wearing me down and the cold virus I can't seem to get rid of.   I am now on iron supplements, B12, B complex, vitamin D, a multivitamin, and vitamin C to help the iron absorb.  He also has me drinking green tea and eating more veggies to help boost my immune system back up.  My new pcp said that if my period doesn't stop soon I am well on my way to becoming anemic and will have even more symptoms so I call the gyn.  They said to just stay on that pill for two more months and I asked if it was ok since I am having iron issue.  They ask me how I could know that...to which I wanted to reply "didn't you listen to my message that stated I went to the pcp and they tested my iron levels" but I did not.  I calmly told her and she said "well we don't have any other options for you."

Ok, I know I am a pain patient.   Years of pill switching since most make me sick, IF for 4 years and then a shitty pregnancy but come on, we are getting close to finding a good pill for me.  This dose doesn't make me nauseous so if this doesn't taper off I am sure there is something with a similar dose I can try.  Hell, I even found a website that offers other pills based on the one you are on plus the side effect you are having.   Needless to say I sent in my release form to have my records sent to me since I no longer work in that town and there is no reason for me to go a half an hour south for doctor's who can do nothing further for me in the birth control realm.   With all we have been through it is silly I am on bcp but they want me on it because of the endo and I can't chance getting pregnant and having hyperemsis again.  ever.

The best news of the day is that Chris was offered a promotion.  Yay, he didn't get the salary he wanted but with all of the budget issues the state is having we will take what we can get at this point.

1/20/11

My first topic of the day is mascara.  I have a love/hate relationship with this product.  I need mascara when I leave the house just as much as I need air since I have blonde eye lashes.  They are so blond it barely even looks like I have eye lashes so I have to have something on them but I am just not a huge fan of mascara in general.  For years I just wore clear so you could at least see that I had lashes.  Last year I used Buxom mascara and I liked it, but didn't love it.  I read some beauty blogs and decided to try Full and Soft by Maybelline.  This is one seriously clumpy mascara so in the trash that went.  Last night I picked up Loreal's Carbon Black Voluminous mascara and it is better but I am not in love with it either which is ok since it was on sale for $5 at Happy Harrys.  The bottom line is that I think my general distaste for mascara was clouding the fact that the Buxom really is the best for me so I will be picking it back up again the next time I am at Sephora.  What's your favorite mascara?

Topic number two is face wash.  I can't rave enough about Purity Made Simple but with this cold weather my face is dry, dry, dry and the Purity is doing nothing for me.  I bought Loreal's 360 sensitive face wash and I love this stuff!  My skin is so much softer now and between that and FAB's Ultra Repair Cream we are back in business.

That's all I have for today in the realm of beauty!  Onto my hilarious child...Jax has decided he wants to be sitting up at all times as of last week.  Every time we lay him down he tries to use his stomach muscles to get himself upright and sometimes gets seriously pissed when he realizes it just isn't happening.   He has now taken to grabbing the rails of the changing table to help hoist himself up.  Slow down dude, what happened to rolling?  "Oh, I am all over that mommy, just watch."  He has only rolled over a handful of times since he rolled over for the first time last month which from everything I have been told is totally normal.  Then last night he rolls over three times on the blanket.  We clap, he laughs, and that was the end of it.  We go to his room to put away laundry and I put him down on his stomach in his crib and ten seconds later I turn around and he rolled over yet again and had this silly grin on his face.  It will be interesting to see if this is another one time thing or if he is going to become more consistent.

Amazon

I would first like to point out that if you don't take advantage of Amazon Mom and Subscribe and Save you  need to jump on that.  The two main things I got off of here are diapers and wipes and we save a ton of money per month.  Jax is currently in Huggies Little Snugglers which are usually somewhere around 37.99 for a case in the store but you can get them for 22.62 with Amazon Mom and Subscribe and Save so clearly I am a huge fan.

This month it didn't work out so well though.  I cancelled Jax's size 1 diapers back in December and signed up for size 2.  It shows in my account that the size 1s were cancelled back in December and my current subscription is size 2s.  Everything was going well until they sent out size 1 and size 2 last week.  No biggie, returns are free except there was nothing in my order history indicating I even ordered the size 1s so I couldn't print a return label.  First I call(customer service is great) and she says she is sorry, it was a computer glitch and that she will make sure it doesn't happen again.  She also says she will send me the correct return label.  Not so much, she sends me a return label for the size 2s and cancels my current size 2 subscription.  Gee, so I have to call back again and she re-activates my subscription which sends out another frigging case of diapers and sends me the correct label.  I now have 3 cases of diapers in my house when I only ordered 1.  At least both cases of size 2s should get used and I have to find time to drop off the size 1s at a UPS drop off site.

I will have to admit I am slightly irked that it can just charge your credit card and send out orders without your knowledge and I will have to re-think it all next month if it happens again..

1/13/11

Another week has gone by and things have been blissfully uneventful, besides the whole teething issue.  He doesn't seem to be too perturbed by the recent development...tons of drool, trying to stick his whole hand in this mouth and gagging while trying to get his soothie over there but other than that we are good.  I bought the whole aisle of teethers this weekend to try and find one that will fit into his little mouth, I think there is one in the bunch that fits the bill but he doesn't seem to keen on having something cold in his mouth.

UPDATE:  You are going to get a kick out of this.  They aren't teeth, they are cysts.  Do I win an award for biggest idiot of the week?  I would also like to point out this wasn't just me it was daycare also swearing it was a tooth.  The cysts usually form on the roof of the mouth, it just so happens this one was right on the gum line.  I think I popped the damned thing this weekend when I had a washcloth in his mouth because he was so miserable sucking on his hand.  For now its gone and the pedi said they are harmless and he is to the age where he shouldn't get too many more.

1/06/11

I promised I would write more often now that I am working but I have nothing to complain about and let's face it that is what most of my blog was!

We are all doing well.  I have really adjusted well to work and Jax going to daycare.  Work isn't half as bad as I remember it being and being able to leave at 4 o'clock helps me keep my mouth shut when something is going on that I don't like.  Don't want to piss the boss off when they are helping make your life easier:)

Jax is :knock on wood: doing very well!  We finally got his prevacid refilled and they flavored it.  He will now take it without spitting out half the dose and in combination with his new forumla things are going so well in the reflux department.  I am going to give it three more weeks but if things are still going well I am going to cancel his appointment at the children's hospital if I get the ok from his ped.  We haven't rolled over much since that first night but from everything I have read that is to be expected.  He coos and tries to talk to us all of the time, it is so adorable.  His favorite thing seems to be when I sing the itsy bitsy spider and walk my fingers up his tummy during diaper changes.  He gets so excited, I love it!

It's crazy how quickly these kiddos develop.  One day he wants nothing to do with his rattles and the next day  I walk in and doesn't he have the damn thing above his head looking at it.  A few days later I turned around and he had one in each hand!  Last night we were playing with a toy that lights up when you hit it and it just amazes me that when the music stops he goes to hit it so it starts back up again.  Hello kid you were in utero a few months ago, how does this all happen so quickly?  As you can see from the pics the only serious bummer of him developing is that he had decided he hates the video camera and the digital camera.  He can be all shits and grins and then he gets the "suspicious camera" look on his face when he sees it.  Boo!

Uh, mom I think the hat is too little for my head.