Monday

11:32 p.m.
Ascites the same as yesterday - no increase. Labs pretty "stable," but wbc has dropped enough to make her neutropenic. Neutropenic precautions are on her door now. Miralax was given to see if some stool is "backed up," but she's been going already...and a lot. I'm not sure if that's the answer, but right now she's sleeping so we'll go with that and see what the morning brings.

9:04 p.m.
I arrived at the hospital about an hour ago and noticed that Shelby looked different than when I left around 1 p.m. Her face is swollen and her tummy is HUGE. It measures 7 cm larger than yesterday and she weighs 1.2 kilos more than when we came in. Labs have been ordered stat and she'll be having an ultrasound here shortly. Crap, crap, crap....pray, pray, pray please. This is most likely ascites. I'll update when I can.

12:25 p.m.
Shelby decided last night that she wanted to go home so sleep was very hard to come by. She cried herself to sleep and then was up for the day at 4 a.m. A nap is definitely coming soon for her, but not for me as I will be heading off to work soon. Scott took the day off and is here until I come back to stay the night. I really can't wait to go to my Mom's after work to spend time with my Riley and Avery.

Not much has changed on the medical front. We still don't know what is causing all this. Her tummy still hurts, but she is able to eat. Her fever was gone this morning. I'll update again tonight. Prayers please...thanks.

In ER

6:22 p.m.
She's been started on Vanco and Zosyn. We'll be here at least 48 hours waiting on cultures. What was seen on the CT may just explain Dr. Deutsch's suspicion of IBS. The fever, though...we still don't know what's causing that. Daddy left for the night to be home with our very sad, Riley, and Avery, who could care less what's going on. Prayers for my middle and big girls that they deal with this admission as well as they can. Because of H1N1, the hospital restricts all visitors other than parents and grandparents. Riley is NOT happy about that. Prayers please, too, that Scott & I can juggle our work schedules and his school schedule. Sigh.

4:12 p.m.
Up on the Peds floor. Waiting to see doctor, but Shelby can eat now, so she is a bit happier.

2:31 p.m.
CT scans shows ascites, thickening of the lining of the bowel and inflammation of the mesentery. Ummm...I hope I got that right. They are deciding which IV antibiotic to put her on. I really don't know what all that means...I'll let you know when I do.

1:14 p.m.
They should be coming anytime now to get her for her CT. Tylenol helped for a bit, but now she's getting miserable again. Labs show there's probably an infection. Where, though, is the question. She will be admitted after the CT results are in. Poor kid.

12:20 p.m.
Shelby woke me this morning w/bad abdominal pain and she was running a temp of 103. We're in the RMH ER. IV is in, labs run, urine collected, CT contrast drank, IV Zofran in...at 1 p.m. they're going to come get her for an abdominal CT. Her pain is pretty high up there on the smiley-face scale. She looks rough. I'm sure she'll be admitted.

Grammie & Riley,
Can you whip up a hospital gown for Ruthie? See Ruthie's IV? Shelby did that.

Late update

Is it really Wednesday already?!?! Sorry for the "update tomorrow..." and then leaving you hanging. Dr. Deutsch thinks Shelby might have IBS, and switched her medication to Bentyl - kinda the same as Levsin, but works a little differently. She had a good day yesterday, with minimal pain. We are praying for more days like that!

Everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving! We (minus Shelby) are looking forward to eating my Mom's yummy food! Shelby has already declared she doesn't like Thanksgiving b/c she doesn't want to eat the food. Poor kid! My Mom is making Shelby friendly (dairy-free) food, but the kid probably won't even try it. Scott and I are meeting with Shelby's beloved psychologist, Dr. Jill, in Chicago, on Friday to talk about how to tackle this growing problem. She really has a love/hate relationship with food and is way, way too young to have eating "problems." Wish us luck and please say a prayer that we can come up with some good solutions! Take care!

Sunday update

I think we have Shelby's abdominal pain under control, but now we need to investigate the "why." Why is this happening, what caused all this pain, why and will she continue the (now increased dose of) Levsin. Dr. Deutsch wants to see her tomorrow. I feel like this was all brought on by the medication given last week and now we are giving medication to do just the opposite - like her little intestines went in overdrive with the cramping and then didn't stop when the medication was stopped, thus leading to her being on medication to stop those cramps...but, its just going to lead her back to square one - the constipation and pain from that. I have been researching away about this. All I can find is that it can happen in (usually older) pediatric liver disease patients. Doctors can really never pinpoint a cause, nor quite find the medication to treat it. You just end up with a very miserable feeling kid until something else pushes them to transplant. Great. What a wonderful prognosis, but, of course, that's just the Dr. Mom diagnosis. I guess I'll let the real doctors have their hand at her, but I will fight and scream to get my kid out of pain!

Update tomorrow...

Shelby's tummy

So I've written about Shelby being "backed-up." Her tummy problems subsided for about 4 days and then started up again. This kid was not only having on-and-off abdominal pain, but also was just looking wiped out. She went to school on Monday, but ended up in the nurse's office with tummy pain in the afternoon. I picked her up from school and took her to her GI doctor. He presribed a new medication to help her go to the bathroom and she's pretty much had pain since. Cramping, especially after she eats or takes the med. I have not given it to her this morning, but she is still not feeling well. I'm waiting on a call back from the doctor. [[sigh]]

Three weeks from today, we'll be on Shelby's Make-A-Wish trip!!! Let's hope we can get this resolved by then....

8:22 p.m. update
Doctor prescribed Levsin and said to give her tylenol. In a few hours she's "supposed" to feel better. Let's see...

10 years ago...

I was starting to feel like a med-free labor may not be the route I was going to be taking. So far, walking, rocking and sitting in the tub were helping manage my labor. But, the nurse kept making me get out of the tub every so often so I could be hooked up to the monitors to make sure the baby was tolerating labor o.k. I was dilated to 5 cm...that's it! I had been at 1-2 cm for weeks and after 12 hours of labor (not hard, though...that's when my water broke) I was only at 5! What a rotten deal! Finally, there was just a time that I got out of the tub and didn't want to go back in. I asked for something to help with the pain. No epidural, though. I am pretty sure they gave me dilaudid for the pain. It worked. I felt all out-of-it, but was aware of things. I really could have cared less what was happening, but at one point remembered thinking "I don't want to feel this way when they hand me my baby." My dose was wearing off around 11 p.m. I did not want another one and that was just fine because I fully dilated in those 2 hours. It was an easy delivery with only 5 pushes to get her out. She was gorgeous!
And still is....

Happy 10th Birthday my first-born! I love you so much!

Update

So, when Shelby is a teenager she is going to shoot me for writing about all this...it took 22 capfuls of Miralax and a follow-up x-ray to make sure she was "cleaned out." Twenty-two.....22!!!!!!!!! How does this happen when the kid is already on a daily maintenance does of this stuff?!?!?!? We will be monitoring her bathroom habits much closer to make sure this doesn't happen this bad again.

Today Avery will get her H1N1 vaccination. Its has been so wonderful to have her back to her old self!

No one has to go to work today and there's no school. Riley and I will be birthday party shopping, but otherwise we hope for a very relaxing day :-)

Avery update; Shelby's tummy; Riley, a decade?

So, little Miss Avery finally started acting like herself after today's nap. She has not had a fever since Sunday, but, boy-o-boy, had a rough week. Now we have a 2 1/2-year-old who is very off her schedule. We'll get her back on track soon...I hope.

Shelby started having abdominal pain yesterday at school. She is on Tamiflu and she and Riley did get their H1N1 vaccinations yesterday morning, but I wasn't convinced that either of those had any thing to do with her tummy pain. Her abdomen was very distended so today I decided to have her looked at. An abdominal x-ray was ordered before we saw Dr. Deutsch's NP and, guess what, she's "backed up" AGAIN. So we (and I mean Grammie as Scott was working and I had a meeting) got to come home and start a "clean out." Its 10:18 p.m - she's had 5 capful's of Miralax and only pooped a little. Sorry to be so graphic. Tomorrow will be a long day, too, for her as we need to do the "clean out" again since we didn't accomplish much with the 1st round. She hates "clean outs" and I don't blame her one bit! Poor kid!

Riley...Riley....Riley...will be 10 in 9 days. No way - it just can't be! My 1st baby - 10! Yikes!

On the upswing?

I hesitate to write that title, but after sleeping for 21 hours, Avery woke and stayed awake around 7:30 this morning. She is very congested and is running a really low-grade temp on-and-off, but is much better compared to yesterday. Go Away Flu!

I HATE the flu!

9:21 p.m.
When Avery was going on almost 9 hours of sleeping, only waking briefly to change positions, we decided it was time for convenient care. What a waste of time. We are concerned about dehydration. We changed her first diaper at about 6:30 p.m. and it wasn't very wet. She did test positive for Influenza type A (no surprise there!) and they said her tonsils looked questionable, but couldn't get a good culture swab. The doctor said give it until tomorrow and then she might need to be admitted for fluids. I'm thinking, why wait, but I will be patient unless she worsens in the night.

Please send prayers to my baby.

10:49 a.m.
Shelby's temp keeps coming and going. She has a cough that comes and goes. She's on Day #3 of Tamiflu.

Scott seems backs to normal.

Avery...Avery, Avery, Avery. She bounced back on Friday, but her congestion slowly got worse. Today she woke up running a temp again and not looking good. I called the on-call Ped and she said unless she is having trouble breathing, do not take her in to be seen. Nothing can be done for her - too late to start the Tamiflu. This is scary stuff. I asked "how do I know when she's over it?" She replied "When she is symptom and fever-free for 2-3 days." Yikes! {{Sigh}} Back to sitting with my sick baby.

Flu update

10:44 p.m.
Shelby DOES have a temp in the 100-101 range. Thank GOD she started Tamiflu yesterday. Hopefully the fever will be the only symptom she gets! We called Chicago to just give them a heads-up and they said she *should* be o.k. since she started the antiviral so early. Please pray. Scott is feeling much better and little Miss Avery played up a storm today. She still needs to drink and eat more and has a stuffy nose and cough, but is MUCH, MUCH better than yesterday.

11:51 a.m.
This flu is SCARY stuff!!!

Avery was really bad last night (we called on the on-call Ped and were debating taking her to the ER). Her fever was 104 w/tylenol! She was drooling and just staring at me, but then fell asleep in my arms and looked much calmer. She woke several times in the night crying and we kept up on the tylenol, but woke at 11 a.m. this morning...FEVER FREE. She ate some breakfast and is drinking some juice. We were really lucky to only have a about 36 hours with this stuff...but they were pretty dramatic. Now, we just pray that the fever doesn't come back as everything I've read says that's the time to worry.

Scott is still very achy and is going on 12 hours of sleeping. No high fever for him, just a low-grade one that didn't last long.

Shelby started crying when she learned she had to take Tamiflu. There has been so much talk in the school about H1N1 that she was really scared. Prayers please that no one else comes down with it!

The Flu.

Scott is miserable, Avery is burning up and coughing and Shelby will be started on Tamiflu after school today. Prayers, please, that it passes quickly through this family.

The Flu?

Scott came home from work today - no fever yet, but stuffy nose, sneezing, cold. When I got home around 6 tonight, I picked up Avery and her forehead felt hot. Her temp is in the 101-102 range and is sleeping next to me right now. Please, do not let Riley & Shelby get this!

Happy Halloween!

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Congratulations Riley!

Riley was 1 of 39 Rockford school children awarded today for her fire prevention poster. She won 2nd place in the 4th grade category. We are so proud of her, and, by the above picture, you can tell she's pretty proud of herself, too. Way to go Riley!Shelby wore her fake glasses all day and has picked up Daddy's habit of taking self-portraits.

Little firefighter Avery

Better now

The meds made me feel so much better. I hit the ground running and put in 40 hours in my 25-30 hour week job. It was nice to be back at the school and interacting with my after school program.

Shelby went back to school last Friday, had her follow-up x-rays for her broken finger on Thursday (Yea! It healed fine.), and has an appointment with her local GI, Dr. Deutsch, for a hospital follow-up and labs again. We have to make sure her ANC keeps heading up.

Riley did not feel well earlier in the week, but recovered just fine. Avery has decided that she does not need to go to sleep at night, so we've been dealing with that fun in the evening.

And the BEST news is.....Scott will start working tomorrow at Rockford Gastroenterology Associates!!!! His CNA instructors called him up a few weeks ago saying that they got a call from GI Assoc. looking for a CNA and wondering who they would recommend...and they called Scott. I'm so happy for him that he is being recognized for all his hard work he is putting into his classes. For now, its a PRN (as needed) position, but hopefully will lead to a regular part-time schedule. He'll work 10-hour days possibly up to 3 times a week so that will be quite an adjustment to his homework time. I'm so proud of him!!!!! :-)

That's all for now (thank goodness!) for the Martin 5...

Update

Shelby's labs have improved; just a smidge, but in the right direction. Off to school she went today. She will need another test, though, because I've tested positive for H. pylori. Shelby does still have occasionally mysterious tummy pain. You can read the link to see why she needs to be tested because I'm still not feeling up to typing too much. I've started my 2-week triple-therapy (2 antibiotics & an acid-reducing medication) regimen. Let's hope I can start feeling better!

What's up with low WBC's around here?

Look at how bruised her little hand is from her broken finger!

Daddy was up to his usual goofiness - look at Avery bubble-head!

So, as I said, I'm sick, too. I went to Immediate Care yesterday and I was dehydrated, but not enough to need IV fluids. My WBC (white blood cell count) came back low, though. Its normal for your WBC to fall when you have a virus, but mine was lower than the anticipated drop. In fact, mine is just a few point above "dangerously" low. Ah, hello, this is what happens to Shelby, not me! So, today I am headed back to my regular doctor to be seen again and have labs re-drawn. I still feel really crappy.

Shelby will have her follow-up labs later this morning at her Pediatrician's. We'll see how those turn out, too. She is still feeling great. Enjoy the pictures!

Home yesterday

Sorry to be so slow, but I hit the ground running yesterday with my after school program and then got sick last night! This is my first chance to attempt an update. Shelby was discharged yesterday morning with orders to stay at home and get labs repeated in 3-4 days. We have to see an increased in her ANC before she can head back to school. She is feeling great and bouncing off the walls. She declares now "I love school! I don't want to miss it!" I'll update later in the week on her labs.

Sunday update

Oh the drama today has brought thus far! It started out this morning about much concern over her labs. Long story short, it looked as if she needed a blood transfusion. Question of the accuracy of the labs was brought up, so a new set was drawn (like the 4th? poke in 2 days, not including the IV) and came back more like Shelby's "normal." Phew!

Then she was moving around in bed and cried out that her IV hurt. When she was hooked up again for her meds, she cried that it hurt and the IV site started to swell. That IV was a goner. But, because her white blood cell count is so low, fevers can not show up even when there is an infection. So, the IV was removed, but a new one had to be put in to continue the meds so she gets 48 full hours of medication while we wait on the cultures. Sigh. What an ordeal! Her veins are starting to show some wear-and-tear from being poked so many times over the years. Finally, the second site they tried worked and the meds are running again.Riley is here for the afternoon and I thought it would be helpful - as in she plays with her sister and I do some work. WRONG! She's as high-maintenance as Shelby today! I just ate some lunch (its 3 p.m.) and think I have them settled enough to attempt some work after this update.

Shelby is in here until her ANC (germ-fighting off ability) is stable or heading back up. Right now its in the 400-range = not good. She's on neutropenic precautions (again) and is having the oh-so-not-fun IV antibiotic diarrhea. If you saw her, though, you'd never guess.

Gotta go work!