I don’t even know where to begin! So I’ll just start
somewhere…
(I wrote the below about two weeks ago… I didn’t get a
chance to finish, but will leave the below as is and provide an update)
I asked her at what point do we start talking about tubes?
She said that typically with 4 infections in a 6 month period, they’d refer us
to a ear/nose/throat (ENT) doctor. According to my calculations, this was now
his 5th. She looked at his chart and said that it seems to be his
3/4th… whatever, I know how many times I’ve gone to get a
prescription filled. She went on to say that the ear/nose/throat doctor
probably would want to wait until the upper respiratory cold season has passed
anyway.
I then asked about how long should I allow Lake
to have these high temps? That day had already been day 4. She said if his
temps are still high on Monday or Tuesday to give her a call.
Basically I left frustrated. I was so sleep deprived that we
took our new RX and left.
The next day he had fevers again and at one point he started
shaking like he had chills and his lips turned slightly purple. I panicked a
little bit. After talking with my mom I decided that I was going to take him to
urgent care the next morning. At 3am, he woke up warm again, I gave him
ibuprofen, prepared to take him in when the sun came up. About 9 am I realized
he had not gotten warm again. Typically the meds would wear off within 4 hours.
The high fevers never did come back. I was so relieved! I had convinced myself
that he must have some sort of internal infection that we need to get him
tested for and that made me feel scared!
Along with the ear infections, the antibiotics reek havoc on
his little body. He’s basically had diarrhea for months! Along with that he
gets rashes and even worse, he also gets yeast infections. I’ve been very
careful and thankfully I have only had a very minor case of thrush from nursing
him. Yesterday he pooped in the tub, today he pooped on the floor. I am sick of
the diarrhea. I am sick of the rashes. I am sick of my baby not feeling good.
So after 7 days of his 10-day antibiotics, I stopped giving it to him today. On
Monday I’m asking for a referral to see a specialist.
(Now time for a current update as of Saturday 4/13)
A little over a week after I wrote the above, I got a call
from daycare that Lake had another really high
fever. I knew it was his ears. Tim picked him up early from daycare and we lied
and said we were taking him to the doctor. If we didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to
return to daycare. That same day, I was going over our medical bills to realize
that even after insurance covered our visits, we were basically paying $100
every time we took Lake into the doctor only
to be told we were getting another round of antibiotics. That was it. Not only
was I sick of my baby being sick, it’s costing us hundreds of dollars and not
getting anywhere! I figured out what I had to do to get him a referral to see a
pediatric ENT at Children’s Hospital. We got that all squared away and have his
appointment on Wednesday April 17th. Now all we had to do is keep Lake healthy enough to avoid missing daycare/work and
taking him to the doctor. That was on a Tuesday. Thursday we get a call from
daycare that Lake ’s temp was 105!! Stop
everything! I picked him up and took him to the ER.
Even after an hour of daycare giving him ibuprofen, he still
had a temp of 102 when the ER docs checked him. All I wanted to do was burst
into tears. I’m scared and sad and pissed off! They said he had a URI (Upper
Respiratory Infection) and a mild ear infection. (In case you are counting, this is now the sixth ear infection since December!) They gave us a different, five
day prescription and sent us on our way. That night Lake
screamed every hour. He was so miserable! I was so grateful that Tim called in
sick that night to help me out. In the morning, Tim took care of Lake so that I can get some sleep. Because Lake was in obvious pain, I had his pediatrician get us a
RX for some ear drops. Tim was a big help getting the meds, more ibuprofen and
acetaminophen (the ER doc told us to alternate those, and it helped keep his
fever down!) and got me some lunch.
Finally by Saturday, Lake ’s
fever finally broke. It’s now been a week and this is the longest stretch of
time that Lake has been happy and playing and
a bit more independent. He is still tugging at his ears and either his ears are
still slightly hurting him or he’s teething, but overall, he is much better. Oh
and lets not forget…
MY BABY IS WALKING!! On vacation, he’d take 1.5 steps. Then
one day (April 1st) Tim texts me at work and says, “Lake can walk now. He has taken 2 steps a few times”.
When my sister watched the kids a few days later, she took video of him taking
4 steps!
Now he can walk from Kaydriana’s bedroom door to her bed.
He’s very slow and looks like Frankenstein walking, but our little guy is on
two feet! It’s really funny because it’s like he doesn’t even think about it.
He just starts going. With Kaydriana, she started walking a little over a year
old, but had been “thinking” about it for some time. She’d practice by moving
along the furniture and wearing a hole in the carpet from between the couch and
ottoman, so by the time she walked unassisted, she was so much more sure
footed. It’s like Lake said screw it to the
practicing and is just going for it. They are seriously so opposite in every
way!
Time to talk about – Vacation! Traveling went fine with the
kids, but every little thing we had to do from parking at the shuttle place, to
getting our rental car, getting the carseat, etc. just was so annoying. But
then we finally pulled up to Tim’s parents house in Sun Lakes , AZ
That weekend we went to Mariner Spring Training games and
Tim and I got a bit too much sun. We got autographs for Lake’s new mitt Tim
bought him and got to spend some time with Tim’s friend, Matt, who lives in
Scottsdale.
We had a chill around the house day on Monday to gear up for
our 6 hour drive to Disneyland the next day.
That night was the first night that Lake
started to have a fever and he did not sleep well. Which meant, neither did I!
Both kids did okay on the drive. Lake slept
most of the time and Kaydriana had Tim’s Ipad.
We had planned on spending our first afternoon there at the
pool, as that was one of the reasons why we chose the Disneyland Pier Hotel.
However, we were notified during check in that their pool was closed. We were
very disappointed. I’ll be writing a letter to the hotel management! We ended
up taking Kaydriana to explore Downtown Disney. It was so cute! She did her
little strut, with her arms out saying over and over, “Disneyland !”
She had no idea how much more exciting it would get!
After another sleepless night with a cranky baby, we went to
Disneyland . I got choked up as I was just so
excited to be giving my kids this experience and experiencing it with them. We
got there a little too early before opening, and even after we got in, we still
had to wait to get past the castle to the rides. 2 years olds do not have
patience. But once we were on our way, it was a non stop fun first few hours of
going on rides (Kaydriana still sings, “It’s a Small World”) and eating and
making memories. Lake was a trooper even
though it was obvious he wasn’t feeling well.
Kaydriana reacted just the way I knew she would. I thought
she might be shy around the characters, but love the princesses. We never did
get a good picture of her with Mickey or Minnie or any other character she
likes watching on TV. But when she saw Cinderella! Oh my gosh, she was so
excited and gave her a huge hug!
We made our way out of the park and back to the hotel where
we left the kids with Nana and Papa and Tim and I went on a few rides by
ourselves. Splash Mountain and Space Mountain
The next day, we had early morning breakfast with Mickey and
Friends and Kaydriana finally warmed up a bit to the characters; she hated
Stitch though. Lakey loved him! Then we headed to California Adventure. We
started the kids off at the little kid friendly places then met up with Nana
and Papa. Tim and I took an hour and went on California Screamin’ (which I did
NOT want to go on!) and then the water ride (forget what it’s called). Tim
really wanted to go on the Hollywood Tower of Terror. I did not, but he was
going to make me go. We got our fast passes and headed back to our reservations
for Ariel’s Grotto. We got meal vouchers from Costco Travel and it was the
highlight of the day! We got to meet Ariel, Aurora, Snow White, and Cinderella.
Snow White was awesome! She was so sweet with Kaydriana and let her hug her
forever! Jim finally said something as the hug was going on a little long. But
I loved it and got a little choked up! Oh and the food was really good!
After lunch Tim decided he wanted to get on the road back to
Arizona , so I got to skip the Tower of Death
That morning back, I took Lake
to the doctor, and now we’re full circle, back to the top where I started.
Sounds like your vacation was great and full of amazing memories for you all!! Loved reading all the updates!
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