21 posts tagged “sickness”

Moving to California, I had some ideas about how life was going to be.  My firm conviction that Dash would be well here topped the list.  As week four in California comes to a close, we're on sickness number three.  As Petunia would say, "This is SO not cool."

The good news is that we've found a pediatrician here in whom I really have faith.  He takes the time to listen to our concerns -- but, most importantly, he takes me seriously and doesn't condescend.  He doesn't just say, "Kids get sick" -- he says, "Dash is sick a lot, and we're going to get to the bottom of this so that he can be well."  That, IMHO, is East Coast/West Coast, at least in our experience.  Dash had a ton of doctors back East, and, while I liked some of them as people, I never felt like they were invested in his wellness.  They were just doing their job; no one looked me in the eye and told me that s/he was going to do whatever it takes to see my kid through to wellness.  So again, I thank my lucky stars that we've landed here for a while.  In my life, I've never said with conviction that I'm staying anyplace -- in fact, when my parents have hinted at moving closer to the grandkids, I always say "but we might not always be there."  I've only been a Californian for a month, but I can say with firm conviction that I'm not leaving anytime soon, if ever.  Even Petunia feels that way; she told us this weekend that she might want to go to Stanford (eek!). 

In any event, our new doc ordered some serious testing for little Dash, the results of which will come in later this week.  Instead of messing around doing guesswork-bloodwork, he ordered a genetic profile which screens for celiac disease (long suspected but never pinpointed as the source of Dash's issues), thyroid issues, and other big things.  We'll know once and for all if he's celiac or not.  We're also following up with an allergist, as our pediatrician wants him screened for allergic rhinitis.  We may or may not get answers with regard to why he's always getting sick, but, at long last, we'll know that we've tried everything to figure it out.  We just couldn't get there back East, but we'll be there within two months of being here.  Maybe we just needed a fresh perspective.  [And a note to friends back East: I'm not saying that docs there can't be great.  We just never found the great ones -- or we found them and they weren't taking new patients.]

Regardless of Dash not being immediately well upon our arrival here, there is a huge up-side to being here -- namely that we don't stay cooped up with him.  We all took a four-mile round-trip bike ride yesterday, partly on a very nice bike trail that we happened upon.  Dash was stylin' in his trailer, pulled halfway by me and halfway by the Guv.  Petunia lasted the whole trip on her own wheels.  We were still able to get out and do something nice as a family without exposing other kids to Dash or vice versa.  That makes my mood, having been up all night with a bootin' boy, a whole lot better!

Here we are, in California.  Every day, we wake up and pinch ourselves.  Are we really here?  Did this really happen?  Is the sun going to shine today, all day, and are we going to the park?  Yes, yes, yes, and yes. 

Words fail to describe how much we all love this house and this town.  Perhaps you've already read of the Guv's love for the house. Dash, who asked every single day this summer if we could move back to New Jersey, has never mentioned that again.  He wants to be in our shaded back yard all day, every day -- when he and Petunia aren't at the park at the end of the street.  When Petunia saw that we could walk to our town's Children's Library -- and especially when I mentioned that soon she could walk there by herself, as she doesn't even need to cross a street -- in addition to the Children's Zoo and Museum and another great park, she, too, stopped asking to go "home."  Even my mother, who lives on a gorgeous Florida beach, is in heaven here.  I suggested that she and my dad house- and pet-sit while we're away next summer.  It took her about two seconds to accept that offer, calling it "a free vacation."  Every new thing we discover -- the local mall, the markets, the restaurants -- is like icing on an already delicious cake.  We are knee-deep in boxes, but we are happy!

Now, the downside, because there always is one... Upon arriving to the house, the Guv opened a packet from our school district indicating that Petunia was set to attend a school four miles away.  Considering that there are three schools within a half-mile of our house, this situation made us very unhappy.  The Guv visited the administration office, some mistakes had been made, yadda yadda yadda... and today, we received a letter from the school at the end of our street.  We'll confirm on Monday that receiving this letter means that Petunia is set to attend that school, but, suffice it to say, we are breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Then there's the downside with Dash, who started getting sniffly yesterday, then today ended up vomiting on my mom while the Guv and I snuck out to dinner.  He's in bed now, dosed with FeverAll and nebulized because of a sudden bad cough, and I'm all kinds of upset.  I'm fairly sure that he has an ear infection, these being signs of his past ones.  We're scheduled to meet his new ENT on Thursday for a tubes check, and let's just say that I'm pretty sure we'll be there on Monday instead. 

Beyond his sudden illness, there's The Potty Issue.  According to literature from his new preschool, Dash MUST be potty-trained, even out of pull-ups, by the start of school, on or about September 1.  Dash could care less about this (or any other) policy.  He entertains us by occasionally using his potty chair when we place him on it, but gone are the Vermont days when he'd run to poop on the potty.  We're in California now, and he's going to do things on Dash Time, which is 'round about never, perhaps.  I'm fairly sure that we'll be preschool drop-outs before the year even starts, especially since, beyond the stubborness issue, Dash WILL NOT sit on a "real" potty.  It's his potty chair or nothing.  And since I'm now au pair-less, it's preschool or No Break For Me.  I wring my hands.  He's sick.  I can't force him to stay in underpants and go every fifteen minutes right now, which was my plan for Monday.  Maybe he'll be well by Friday.  That gives me a week and a half.  That's enough time, right?

In any event, on Monday evening I head to my first Silicon Valley Moms Blog gathering, where I'll finally meet some of my virtual cowriters; it's my goal to have my first post up on the SVMB site on Monday as well.  The Guv will continue settling into his West Coast office, and my mom and I will manage kids and unpack throughout the week.  It's a great thing to have a grandma on hand to help us, and it's great that the kids are enjoying our new home and hometown.  I'm not quite ready to wave the victory flag -- not until Dash is well, at any rate -- but I think this process is going better than could be expected.  I'm sure the constant sunshine and 72-degree weather has more than a little to do with that.  Ouch!  I just pinched myself again.  It's really true; we're finally here.

Dash's pediatrician says his tonsils look "normal for him."  Her sense was that if he wants to spend a couple of days drinking milkshakes alone, let him -- and she thinks that this eating refusal is just him vying for yet more attention.  I'm not sure -- he seems to be legitimately bothered by eating -- but what the doc and I agree on is that his sensation of chewing and swallowing is probably different with the ear tubes in, and perhaps he's trying to express that.

Perhaps.  Or perhaps I missed tennis for nothing.

The Guv does this imitation of a Jesse Jackson speech that almost always brings people to their knees laughing (except me, of course, because I've heard it about two thousand times and am appalled that he taught this thing to my children).  Anyway, the riff he usually starts with is Jesse saying "hopes busted... dreams shattered..."

And that is today.  Today, I am missing my beloved tennis drill to take Dash to his pediatrician -- the doctor I was fairly sure we'd never see again after his tubes were placed.  Suddenly, over the last day, he has had a lot of pain while eating.  I looked in his mouth, and his tonsils appear inflamed, especially the right one.  Thinking that maybe the new drainage tubes weren't working properly, I called the ENT practice at St. Christopher's, and they feel that it's highly unlikely that this problem has anything to do with his tubes.  I keep thinking that at least I can't blame this issue on preschool, since it happened right afterward.  No one gets sick that fast.

So that he could eat -- because he is quite hungry -- I gave Dash a hit of Motrin, thinking that would help with the pain and inflammation.  He finally decided to try a very soft cereal bar. 

And then it broke.  And nothing, nothing at all, busts Dash's hopes more than a broken cereal bar.  His world, it has to be in perfect order, and in that order, cereal bars, granola bars, pretzels, Matchbox cars, crayons, and anything else cannot break, or it makes him extremely, unusually upset.  In the back of my mind, I know that this is strange behavior.  We've had so many medical issues to focus on with this kid that I haven't been able to pay much mind to the broken cereal bar issue.  For that, the sleeping, the potty, and everything else, we've been waiting for him to reach the Age of Reason.  But what if he doesn't?  What if unreasonableness is part of him? 

As Jesse would say, "Keep hope alive!"  Today, my hopes are busted, and Dash's cereal bar is broken, but there's always tomorrow...

Dash's ear tubes are in! 

This morning, we drove to Philly at 5 am for a 6 am arrival for the procedure.  After a thorough check-up, Dash was anesthetized at 7:30, the procedure performed fairly quickly, and then we rejoined him in recovery when he woke up from a nice nap at 8:30.  Since he drank a 16 oz Slurpee right away, we were discharged quickly (at 9:30) and arrived home at 10:30, via Dunkin Donuts to meet Dash's demands for a pink donut.  So he's already eating better!  He'll be woozy and find it a bit hard to stay stable on his feet today, but he should be back to normal -- God help us all -- tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who sent good thoughts and prayers our way for this procedure.  And a big, huge, THANK YOU to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, which has the nicest group of nurses, doctors and staff of any hospital or practice we've ever seen.  I'm almost sad to be moving away from such fantastic medical care -- but, hopefully, we'll no longer need it!

Today, we should be celebrating, as we are out of "attorney review" for the sale of our house.  The inspection is tomorrow afternoon, and then we're coasting until our closing on June 23. 

I write that we "should" be celebrating because there will be no party here tonight.  Instead, we'll be tending to a sick Dash yet again.  Yesterday, he was excited about going to preschool today.  But he slept poorly, complaining about the "ear infection on his tongue" -- which I assumed was the thrush on his tongue that happened because all of the antibiotics he's been taking.  He's been eating a lot of yogurt, though, and the thrush looked like it was on its way out.  Today, he woke up happy, and, while he was nervous about going to school (he's been absent for a week and a half), he still very much wanted to go.  I checked him over, and he seemed fine -- even more rested than I would've expected.  I needed a triple-shot latte to wake up, but Dash was off to the races.   So, to school (and to Starbucks) we went.

When I picked him up from school, we had such a nice conversation.  He told me about playing on the playground, about eating crackers and drinking water at snacktime, and how their class's luna moth has hatched.  Dash also informed me that "I was nice today, Mama" -- meaning that he didn't bite, hit or kick anyone, which is a problem when he has an active ear infection, as the pain begets bad behavior.  (Clearly, I don't excuse this type of behavior; I've learned not to send him to school at all even when he's recovering from these beastly ear infections, since, like anyone, he's far from his best when he's sick and recovering.)  Anyway, I noticed the dried snot around his nose and figured it was from their cool morning playground trip.  Then I loaded him into the car and kissed his head -- and freaked out.  He was hot.  I felt his hands -- also hot.  I drove home, and, what do you know, he had a fever of nearly 102.

Now, I am not going to panic about this, because, this time, I'm not sure that it's an ear infection.  The Guv was sick all weekend with a stomach bug that we thought might've been food poisoning.  So, I'm going to give this a few days.  Quite frankly, I don't think I have a choice -- if he does need antibiotics yet again, I'd like for the thrush to be all the way gone instead of worsened by a new course.  Plus, Dash tells me his ears don't hurt and that the ear infection on his tongue (?!) feels better.  So, we wait.  At least he ate a few crackers so that he could keep Motrin down, and we'll both take a nice, long nap soon.

We never get a break around here, but I know that one's coming.  Last summer in Vermont, no one had a sniffle.  In 60 short days, we'll be back in the Green Mountains, out of toxic New Jersey for good, and, soon after, headed to a much warmer clime.  Our first weekend in Vermont, I will celebrate, knowing that better health is headed our way.  Let's just hope that I can stay focused on getting there instead of beating my head against the wall and chanting "not again." 

Ladies, gentlemen, I am back... Back from a trip to Palo Alto where I learned that homes costing less than $2 million are tear-downs, homes less than $3 million need a lot of work or are in the wrong location... You get the idea.  I am incredibly, hugely psyched that we are moving to that neck of the woods, but we will be living in a less-than-perfect house that will cost too much, rendering us unable to ever fix it up.  As well, we might have to take turns selling kidneys in order to afford a lot bigger than 5000 square feet.  But no matter what, we'll be in a place where there is a park on every corner, people outdoors all the time, and a whole lot of awesome friends already there.  I can't wait!

I also can't wait to be in the backyard of Stanford Hospital.  If there were a house available within walking distance to it, I might buy that one, since, at the rate things around going around here, we'll want the proximity: While I was away, the Guv ended up in the ER, then the pediatric unit of a God-awful hospital in Trenton.  First he called and told me, "Dash has pneumonia; they're admitting him." Then he called back and said, "It was the nurse practicioner that wanted to admit him; now that a real doctor has seen him, the actual MD doesn't want to admit him and doesn't think he has pneumonia at all."  Finally, he called back and put the doctor on the phone.  Dash's now-chronic ear infection coupled with a virus caused his white blood cell count to skyrocket and his fever to hit 105.  They gave him some super-strong IV antibiotics, plus ten days of antibiotics for home, and discharged him.  Today, I learned that the unquestionably incorrect pneumonia diagnosis came about because of some cloudiness on a lung x-ray due to the viral part of his illness -- and because an inept non-doctor was in charge of his ER care.

Probably, I should write that I never should've stepped on the plane, but I have to say that I don't feel that way at all.  I have handled a number of Dash's illnesses and ER trips solo, and I knew that the Guv could handle the situation -- and he did.  He handled everything as well as I would have, and it was nice to give him the vote of confidence by leaving, though I did change my flight home to a half-day earlier so that I could get back and see Dash in the daylight.  I needed that for me, not for Dash, and I actually think he was upset that his time with Daddy had come to an end.

In the meanwhile, Dash's pediatrician is finally heeding my demand to find him a near-immediate ENT appointment.  She isn't very take-charge, though -- not a care manager at all, just a day-by-day doctor -- so I'm not sure if her calls will be fruitful.  Did I mention how glad I am that we're moving to a place where the medical care in my backyard will be top-notch and, by all accounts, infinitely more effective?  Because here in overcrowded NJ, Dash will have had three ear infections, two ER trips and one pediatrics unit intake in the time that we've been waiting for our ENT appointment.  That's just not right, not for anyone, and most of all not for Dash, who has suffered enough.

My posts have been slow lately for a number of reasons.  Some are good reasons, like the new blogging gig I'm undertaking (more on that when it's "launched").  But most are the same old bad reasons: Dash is sick again, and so am I.

On the very first day of our spring break vacation, Dash came down with a cold, which quickly became an ear infection, which, after much ado, was addressed through another course of antibiotics.  Or so we thought, until he woke up this morning with a near-105 degree fever.  I controlled the fever a bit with "butt medi" -- what Dash now calls his FeverAll suppositories -- and planned to take him to the doc when she opened.  I spent the interim hours trying to figure out the problem.. it wasn't pneumonia, because he wasn't coughing.  It wasn't a bug, because he only threw up once when the fever was at its highest, and he managed to keep down liquids in small sips just fine (which is rare for him with a fever).  When I offered him an ice pop trying to get him cooled down, he replied, "I don't want an ice pop, I want my doctor."  So, off to the doctor we went.  Her diagnosis?  An ear infection.  Still.  Again.  Even after eight-plus days of antiobiotics.  The antibiotics just weren't working this time -- not unheard of when a kid has had the same antibiotic ten-plus times in a calendar year.  Clearly, though, she was as disturbed as me.  The ENT appointment, still on for April 30, can't come soon enough.  There's no question that Dash needs ear tubes.  He'll have had three more ear infections in the time from when I made the ENT appointment until he is finally seen -- but I'll save THAT rant against Big Medicine for another post. 

In any event, Dash is now on a new antibiotic, one that he bravely took and very surprisingly kept down.  I could tell that he fought very, very hard not to throw it up -- and for the first time ever, he won that fight.  He knows he needs the medicine to get over this quickly, because he knows that a weekend alone with Daddy is coming up.

That's right, I head out of town ALONE for the first time in four years on Friday, for a quick weekend trip to Cali to look at houses.  Daddy's in charge, and second lieutenant Petunia will help keep things in line.  I'm fighting my own sickness, which is probably a sinus infection at this point, but watch me do my best to ignore my own stuffy head... I have two nights in a Westin coming up, and did I mention that I'll be alone?  I haven't slept alone in years, and boy, do I plan to sleep, after I nap, after I sleep in, after I rest my eyes, after I roll around in the Heavenly Bed and catch some zzz's.   Oh, yeah, I'm actually going to look at houses...

Round One in Dr. Mom versus Big Medicine goes to: Dr. Mom!  I begged, pleaded and cajoled our back-up pediatrician in NJ until she called in a prescription for Taylor's ear infection.  Two doses later, his fever's gone, and he's acting normal again -- meaning that he's running all over the house like he's being chased by a pack of wolves.  Normal!  Normal is good. 

For some reason, I am unpleasantly surprised each time this country's health care system fails me.  I think I'd be better off accepting it now: our health care system sucks, and it's just going to suck more until "someone" does "something" about it.  No, I have no solution.  I just have a sick kid.  He had a fever Friday-Saturday, got well Sunday, started developing another fever on Monday, and today -- tah dah! -- has yet another ear infection.

So here's the problem: we're in Vermont.  His pediatrician in NJ -- who knows that we're waiting for Dash's ENT appointment at the end of April, who likely would call in an antibiotic for us since she knows that I know when he has an ear infection -- is on vacation.  Dash has a 102 fever.  He is cringing left ear-to-left shoulder.  His left eye is watering.  He is telling me that his ear hurts.  I have put in a call to her back-up doctor, who has seen Dash before with an ear infection, in hopes that she'll believe me and call in his beloved FiFi medi (Omnicef).

Meanwhile, I have been calling all over the states of Vermont and New Hampshire trying to find a pediatrician who will take care of my son.  And I am FURIOUS at the pediatrics department of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, who told me last summer that "yes, of course we see seasonal patients" -- and then changed their policy in December, such that the only place my son can be seen there is in the ED (what they call an ER) - even though they have appointments available all day.  So, instead of a super-quick doctor's office visit that bills to my insurance at around $70 a pop, we have to go to the ER, likely wait for a long time, and then my insurance company gets billed north of $300.  THAT is what's wrong with health care in America.  Why don't we all just start using the ER for our health care needs instead of having doctors at all?  That's basically what Dartmouth Peds is suggesting.  I understand that there are people who have no other choice.  Our family is fortunate to have top-notch health insurance that allows us to see any doctor we wish.  What I didn't account for is that doctors might not want to see us.

In any event, Dash will be alright, as ever, and, if I can't talk our NJ back-up doc into calling in meds for him, I found a place nearby that might be able to squeeze him in tomorrow.  Of course, they also don't see "seasonal people."  But this time, I'll lie.  The Guv would be proud, as he's always saying I'm too process-focused and need to be outcomes-oriented instead.  In this case, at least, he's right.  My son needs a quick doctor's visit, and I'm not going to subject him or my insurance to another ER visit.