...and the Rest of the Story

So...when we last left off, little one was sleeping after her breathing treatments. She slept through the night on Tuesday and happily went to pre-school on Wednesday. She was still a bit wheezy but seems less so. Her color does not seem right to me so am thinking she is still going to get a cold but we can deal with that. Then the phone call....the doctor read the X-ray from the night before. I was on another call when she called so she left a message to call her. I called her back but she did not answer. Then her husband, who I work with, stopped by my office and asked if I had talked to his wife (munchkin's pediatrician). I said that we had exchanged phone messages. He said, "You need to call her." Now I am getting worried. When I enquired about what was going on, he said that he did not know but knew that I needed to talk to his wife. I called her again. She says, you need to get little one to the emergency room as she has a blockage in her lung. Ahhh!!!

I run out the door (my coworkers are staring after me) and called hubby. We met at home. We packed overnight bags (just to be safe), the portable DVD player (to keep little one occupied in the ER), picked up little one and set off to Texas Children's Hospital down in Houston. We arrived at 3:30pm. They triaged her at 4:00. Her oxygen level was down again to the low 90s. The reason her wheezing was less was that now her lung was completed blocked and no air was getting through at all. (Don't I feel like a horrible mother. I thought she was geting better when she was really getting worse.) Sat in the waiting room until 6. At 6, we were called to the exam room where we gave little ones history to the nurse. At 6:25, we gave her history to the resident. At 6:40, we saw the attending. At 7: 30, we met with the ENT. At 8:00, they took the confirming X-ray that there was a blockage. At 8:30, we went to pre-op. At 9:15, they took her off to the OR. At 10:30, they called us back to post-op. At 11:40, we were assigned to a room. A long, scary day....with a positive outcome.

Little one handled everything with a smile. (I was off cowering in a corner.) As we waited in the ER, little one pointed out the colors of the various floor tiles, was laughing, crawling up and off her chair, ran up and down the hallway, etc (just a few stops here and there for coughing fits). Others in the ER was sad, crying and otherwise miserable. It was a sad place to be and I wished the best for everyone.

Because we already had the initial X-ray, the various people that came by were just confirming the diagnosis of something being stuck in her lung. Everyone asked for the story of what brought her here. Everyone listened to her lungs and reaffirmed no air was getting through on the right side. Everyone did their best to put us at ease. Their confidence in dealing with this made us feel much better (as well as you can be in the emergency room).

Little one made friends at each visit. When one doctor left, she said "Bye Doctor." We were the only kiddo in Pre-op so she had the run of the place. Munchkin played hide and seek with the nurses. They brought her a little pink car that she "drove" around. She was having a good time. By the time they took her off to the OR, she barely gave us a glance because she was with her new friends. Meanwhile, hubby and I are puddles, feeling bare without our little one with us.

The doctor came to the waiting room and showed us photos of the blockage. The offending object? A cashew, two actually. One was totally blocking the right lung and another piece was "way" down. Because it had been in there for two days, the lung was also filled with pus (infection....pneumonia) and it had started to leak over into the left lung. He said if we had waited another 12 hours, we would have had a "really sick little girl."

I stayed the night with little one. They gave her a couple of breathing treatments and rounds of antibiotics through the night and the next morning. Since she seemed to be responding well, they released her with a prescription of "strong" antibiotics. When hubby filled the prescription, the pharmacist told him this was a REALLy large dose (3 x a day, 9ml per dose) of a very strong antibiotics. He also warned us that it was really foul tasting and, because it is a granular suspension, you cannot use a sippy cup as it would be filtered out.

I had dreams [nightmares] about giving the rug rat the antibiotics. We can barely get liquid Tylenol down her and that tastes good. What was our chance of successfully getting this down her? According to hubby, I was talking about this all night. We happened to have a couple of small apple juice boxes (with straws). With hope and a prayer, we decided to try putting the medicine in there. She drank it!!!!! And, she drank the other two today as well. Yeah! Now only 8 more days of this.

Thanks to everyone for all their kind thoughts and prayers.

Wheeze, wheeze go away...

So I pick little one up from Pre-School yesterday set to have a fun mommy and me evening at Kindermusik. As I walk in, she has an apple and some nuts in front of her and she is having a coughing fit. The teacher said that she just choked a bit on a piece of apple. She gave me my normal big hug and I noticed she seemed to be breathing a bit hard. Anyway, off we go.

As I am driving along, I start hearing her panting more and more. I pull over and look closely at her. She does not seem to be turning blue but she does seem to be wheezing. I gave her some water and we waited for a bit...and she seemed to be breathing easier. So off we go to Kindermusik. As we start singing songs and moving about, she starts coughing and wheezing again. She is not acting distressed or turning blue but just really wheezy. I have three choices - hospital, home or impose on a friend, who happens to be little ones pediatrician. I chose three and she was gracious enough to invite me to come over to her house. She gave little one the once over, gave us some breathing treatments for the evening and then set us up for an appt the next day.

Little one was up and down the entire night. This morning, she seemed to be breathing much better but her nose seemed to be running a little...so thought this was just the start of a cold. By the time of her appt this afternoon, the wheezing was back. When they took her oxygen level at the drs office, it was only 93% (99-100 is best) and respiration rate well over 40, nearing 50. After a few breathing treatments, a couple of hours at the office, little ones oxygen level was 99%. Whew! As a precaution, the doc did send us over to the hospital for a chest exam. As she has not been running any fever, they don't seem all that worried...but...I have to say, I am a basket case. (I am a tough old broad, as many will attest to....but when little one is hurting, I become wilted lettuce.)

We did a breathing treatment just before bed. It has now been 2.5 hours and so far, she is sleeping. If she wakes up, we will give her another treatment. Hopefully, the X-ray will show all is normal with her lungs and these treatments (along with some steroids) will do the trick.

"Do you want a meatball?" and "Where did my socks go?"

We are still struggling with getting proteins into little one. We have tried just about every meat and bean imaginable. We have served them baked, fried, plain with sauce. To give us more choices and so we don't throw away as much food, when we are in grocery stores on the weekends, we always try to have little one sample everything.

Yesterday, after the playing at the Little Gym and before any snack, we stopped by Sam's club. We asked little one if she wanted to try all the various things that were offered. Imagine our suprise when she said "yes." And, double suprise when she had not one but two! We were quite excited and we bought a whole bag. A whole bag at Sam's club is like a 5 lb sack or enough meatballs to have a meatball everyday for 3 months.

So we made up a couple for lunch today. No go! Oh well. Looks like mommy and daddy will be enjoying meatballs for some time to come.

Little one usually plays in her crib for a bit when she wakes up from her nap. We will hear her talking or singing or laughing. If we go in, she will not really be ready to get up. When she is ready, she will call out for us. When she called for me today, she was in a great mood, hair flying everywhere, hands waving in the air. As you can see, she has taken her socks off her feet and put them on her hands. Too funny!!

I have been off work since a week ago last Thursday. I have enjoyed the time off. I have kept up on work emails so will not have a massive amount to go through in the morning. Will just have lots of issues waiting for me....as usual. Time to jump back in to the deep end with both feet.

What a relief!!

Today, hubby went in for the final test before the propsed open heart surgery. They put him under anesthesia and put a scope down his throat. (Apparently, you can see the heart this way...go figure.) Anyway, the doctor came out about 10-15 minutes after they wheeled hubby away and said that the leaking was less than they had thought and the ventricle was not as dilated. Thus, they were going to wait to do anything else for 6 months. Hubby has one final check up with the doctor next week but we are breathing sighs of relief at this news.

He will eventually have to have the valve replacement surgery. The good news is that there is a new procedure on the horizon where this surgery can be done through a cathetor through a vein in the arm (radial artery). This would make the procedure MUCHO less invasive and recovery time much less. So, hopefully, we can wait long enough for this surgery for this new procedure to come on line.

Started working on a page from our recent trip to Wichita. This is little one playing bubbles with Grandpa.

Credits to Sir Scrapalot Sweet Sugar Love kit. Love all the girly elements. YOu will be seeing this kit many more times.

Family Vacation?

This past weekend was spent in Wichita, Kansas for hubby's niece's wedding. Since we did not venture up for Christmas, we knew that hubby's relatives would spoil little one (lavish her with gifts), and because she has so much paraphenalia of her own, we decided to drive. The drive SHOULD be about 8 1/2 hours...but with little one....we knew we would have to stop and let her stretch her legs so we counted on a long day's drive. In preparation for the drive, hubby purchased a small DVD player and checked out 5 kid DVD's from the library.

We left on Thursday at about 11am and made it to Grandma's and Grandpa's house at 9:30 pm. Long day...but have to say, the DVD player was AWESOME! (On a weekly basis, little one watches approximately 1-2 hours of video. It is the same video each time. A video called Baby Songs - Animals. We watch/sing some of the songs before she goes to bed as a way to wind down, after our bath and before our last book.) Thus, she was just mesmerized by all the new characters that she was introduced to - Pooh and all his friends, Big Bird and all the Sesame Street people, and The Wiggles.

Friday, we hung out with Grandma and Grandpa. Saturday was a completely full day. We started the day with a visit to hubby's sister's house. They have a 9 year old girl that just loves little one. They played and giggled and played. There was one boo boo time out (little one fell off the bed and landed on her head). From there, we went to the afternoon wedding. The wedding was beautiful. Little one did not really care. She had brought one of her cousin's dolls with her and was occupied with taking her clothes off. (Do you know that they make dolls anatomically correct these days?) From the wedding, we went back to hubby's sister's house for more play for the girls and a 6 handed Pitch game for the rest of us. After more playtime, we headed off to the reception for more fun. The girls had a great time. They danced. They played under the tables. I tried to get little one to eat something healthy, while hubby's big brother kept dropping M&M's onto little one's plate. We called it a day at 9pm. A hugely long day for little one.

Sunday, we hung out at hubby's other brother's house. More playing with cousins. Hubby and I had our turn with Wii. We decided we are not good and video games AND we don't have the time to get good at them. Monday, we went to visit an old classmate of hubby, who happens to be an eye doctor. He gave little one her first eye exam. He was awesome with her. She sat in the chair and looked at the things he told her to look at. What a big girl she is getting to be!

Yesterday was the DVD filled drive back. (Note to self, bring more than 5 DVD's for two 10 hour drives.)

There were so many firsts on this trip. Little one got to play in snow (we saw snow last year but this year, she got to throw a snow ball). Little one slept in a big girl bed (we decided not to bring the Pack-and-Play as she can now crawl out of it with ease. She was so exhausted by the end of each day that she just fell in bed and did not move until morning.). She attended her first wedding reception and dance. With all the comings and goings, missed naps and bedtimes, she still had a smile and laugh for everyone.

Grandpa and little one playing bubbles.
Little one and cousin...they played and played and played.

There's no place like home

After a week in London, it is great to be home. London lived up to its weather reputation of cold, wet and, generally, miserable. This particular trip, it snowed and was REALLY cold. If there was any doubt it was cold, every freaking weather report repeated over and over that this was the coldest day of the winter so far. (I am such a cold wimp. Hearing that it was the coldest day of the year made me even colder.)

While on this trip, hubby received results from his annual physical. The result showed that the leaky valve in his heart was doing bad things and that he will likely have to have the valve replaced ... open heart surgery!! This was quite a shocker and horrible to take when I was 6000 miles away. The doctors are doing one final definitive test a week from Friday. If that result confirms the previous test, we will have to live with that new reality. The valve replacement surgery is supposedly the "easiest" of open heart surgeries but....hubby would be in the hospital for 5-10 days and then recovery is 3-5 months. This is just shocking to me as he is healthy, active, in shape, etc....oh well, something to deal with and go on.

We are heading to Wichita on Thursday for hubby's goddaughter's wedding. Will be a fun weekend. (Hopefully, it will warm up!) Hubby's relatives have not see little one for awhile. They will be shocked at how big she has gotten. She is going to have so much fun playing with all her cousins. Will take lots of photos!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!

2008 came and went so fast. Many changes at work - new Pres for the company, new title for me, currency fluctuations making international business quite interesting, etc. Little one continues to grow at an amazing pace. How do you slow things down? I never really set new year's resolutions, so will continue that tradition.

OK, I say that I don't do resolutions but I do TRY to do various things. It continues to shock me that little one continues to grow and change so fast. So this year, as I have for the last two years, I will do my utmost to spend as much time at home with hubby and little one to just enjoy life. (I say this as I am typing in my hotel room in London. Yup. Am in London for the week. Went from the high 70s of Houston to the low 30s. Brrrr.)

As it is so cold, I felt inclined to finish and post little ones outing this summer to the tennis courts.

Have a great week!