Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Endocrinology Etc




Since my last post Fi has definitely improved. She's hardly even coughing, peeing normally and back to her normal self. She has been peeing regularly so I suppose despite my doubt they may have been right. I actually think she's still somewhat constipated so we're working on getting her back to her baseline and after talking with Dr E yesterday we decided that when Fi gets sick we need to boost her miralax.

We had a good Thanksgiving even though Fi was a total grouch and melting down about nearly everything. Did some Santa duty black friday and worked it as well, but I survived both...happy that it's only once a yr.

Now onto Endo. We got into to the car and Fi was fussing and I was like oh great, and then the radio came on and was playing "All of Me" (love that song) she quieted down and I was sure everything would go well today. Dr Vargus was awesome!!! But the best part of the apt was that we found out that Fi is just little. I asked about continuing her high cal diet and he basically shrugged and said we could if we wanted, but she's just going to be small. He said it was clear that she had some issues with growth at one point, but seems to be past it now. What a relief!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

ER Visit Pics

She passed out as soon as she was done pooping. LOL

And So the Plague Continues

Fiona has now been sick for 2 wks. We've been to the ped a total of 3x and just ended our long streak of avoiding the ER. Yesterday I brought Fi back into the ped clinic since she was not improving at all and her cough was actually getting worse. Again everything checked out on her, clear lungs, throat, and ears. The said that she might be at the beginning of a sinus infection, but did not want to give her antibiotics yet. We were sent home and told to watch for any green or brown mucus being coughed up, or coughing until she throws up.

So again we went home and she was up a bunch last night. In the meantime since she's been sick she's been constipated on and off but honestly that's not out of the norm for her, esp when she's sick. Well when we went to the ped yesterday I didn't think anything about it. Today I noticed that she wasn't wetting diapers so I called her ped. They advised me to head to the ER since if I went to the clinic they would send us in to be admitted.

It took me awhile to track down the stuff for our hospital visit bag since I stopped keeping one together after going so long with no real bumps in the road. We didn't even have to wait and the triage nurse was very nice. She noticed that her heart rate was a little high at 130 and pulse ox a little low for Fi at 94%. So when we got in the room the hooked her up to the pulse ox to keep an eye on this. They were also convinced she had a fever, which she didn't.

The decided to cath her and get a urine sample thinking she had a UTI. The results came back clear, so they said that they thought her stool being impacted was the problem. We opted to go for an enema clean out there because if it didn't work at home I didn't want to be right back.

Poor Fiona was literally punching herself in the stomach and yelling it hurts, I felt terrible for her. I almost cried watching her, it was bad. After about 15 min she was cleaned out and fell asleep. Sure this is a TMI but in the grand scheme this wasn't that much poop, nothing like the amt I've seen with cleanouts in the past. I'm a little doubtful that this was the problem and if she doesn't start peeing by 10pm I'm taking her to the ER at Children's Hospital because I don't feel like we're getting anywhere with this particular illness at Tulane.

I'll add some pics in a bit...waiting for them to upload

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

A Sick Little Monkey

So Fi has pretty much been sick for the last week (fever started last wed). She had fever for 2 days. Friday I woke her up and was excited that she didn't have a fever. She was very grumpy though and a couple minutes after waking up she puked. It was all bile since she hadn't eaten the day before. Well since I had missed work 2 days already I decided to go in. As soon as we got to her Dad's house she threw up again. The whole day she kept throwing up and we had skipped her miralax because of that, didn't want to dehydrate her. Well that night her tummy was hard and distended, which freaked me out since she was vomiting and hadn't eaten...long story short she was constipated :-/

Saturday she woke up, no fever, no puking just completely back to her normal rotten self. Going crazy from being home all week we ventured out to a couple stores and got some xmas craft stuff. It was an uneventful day and I was sure she was better...until Sunday

Sunday she woke up with a little bit of a cough, mentioned it to her dad when he picked her up and didn't think much of it. She ended up being up all night coughing her voice got very raspy and he text me at work to say that we needed to get her in to the doctor. So I called yesterday and left a message saying we needed to be seen again, they called back my cell and I was at work so I had to call and leave another message, with another frickin person and tell them all the same stuff.

They called me back the 2nd time at after 1pm so there was no chance of getting in same day. So we made an apt for 1st thing in the AM. Laz (Fi's dad) who usually never worries when she gets sick was worried that we'd need to go to the ER because she was really sick. He told me to see her and decide what I thought was best. When she got home she seemed okay. It is a really yucky cough but I thought we should wait.

So I brought her in this morning. They weighed her and at 1st it said 26lb 6oz but then it was 26lb 8oz after a couple minutes? Regardless this means she's lost a 1/2 lb since Thu and considering how hard it is to get her to gain it kind of sucks. The good news was that they didn't find anything wrong, ears, lungs, and throat are all clear. So they think that she just has a nasty virus and we need to just let it run its course. I would have preferred that they get a better look at her throat though, she was fighting them so much...the resident said she got a good look, but Fi was wiggling so much I'm not sure how she could have. I just can't imagine that with how hoarse she is her throat is not at least red?..Maybe I'm wrong.

At this point I just hope she gets better quickly and we can avoid going back in. We all need some good sleep and healthy time :-)

Friday, November 11, 2011

We Have the "Plague"

So the past week, to put it mildly has sucked completely. It started when I got a tickle in my throat last Friday. Saturday it was sore, but not awful, Sunday it was a little worse. By Monday night I felt like I was dying. I barely made it through my shift at work and when I woke up the next morning I knew I couldn't make it through another. So I stayed home and just laid around all day with Fi and figured I'd be better by the morning.

Well as it became night I realized that I was only getting worse and was actually considering going to the ER, but decided to go buy some OTC stuff and suck it up. Stayed home again Wed. Well in the AM I noticed Fi felt warm, took her temp and it was a little high (which btw was not a symptom I'd had). I was mad because I thought for once Fi would be spared the illness. By Wed night Fi was burning up (fever was almost 103), but she was refusing all fever meds.

Finally got her to take some and called the ped office in the AM. Brought her in and Dr E examined her and said it was most likely viral, but hard to say at that point since fever was her only symptom and everything looked ok. We came home and took it easy, fever stayed around 101-102 all day. Gave her some ibuprophen so she'd sleep better and went to sleep (which I hadn't really the night before)

Well I had to be up at 6 for work and I tried to go to sleep early. Fi was out at 9:30, but I was up all night hacking up a lung. So I was exhausted this morning. Got Fi up at 6:40 and she whined like no other and insisted that she was sleeping. Usually she's not so angry. Brought her downstairs and 2sec later vomit...good news no fever though. So I call her dad because I need to leave for his house like now, and here she is puking, so he said just bring her. I thought for sure she'd puke in the car but she held off until we got to his house. Talked to him at 12pm and he said she was still puking and won't drink. Since then she's actually drank a little and peed twice (which she hadn't done since yesterday afternoon)...so I hope we can keep her hydrated, may call and see if we can get her some zofran.

So we've been busy being sick and I forgot to mention the craziest symptom I've had is that when I sneeze my chest, arms, ribs etc feel like a bomb went off and burn for minutes after...it's awful, I call it the death sneeze, and funny enough when I googled death sneeze it turns out you can in fact die from sneezing.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Sleeping Too Much?...and Other Fun





It's been a little while since I updated and we've been staying pretty busy. Fi had a great time with all of the Halloween activities over the past couple weeks. We visited the pumpkin patch...sort of twice, hung out with some her friends and did 3 different trick or treat days. She didn't get a ton of candy which was fine with me. She looked adorable dressed as Cinderella.

I called her ped office 2wks ago as she'd had some tummy troubles, and her yeast infection was going on 3 weeks and getting worse despite using a topical med the entire time. We decided to go ahead and try Fluconazole (aka diflucan), we did 10mg for a week in addition to the Nystatin. Well around day 5 things started to look better and her yeast infection was gone at day 7. I was excited and thought we were in the clear esp since we've recently started potty training and she's spending less time in diapers. Well to my surprise it was back in full force yesterday and today she was complaining about it hurting.

She also has been sleeping, what we think may be a ton. She will often nap for 4 or more hours during the day and is still sleeping around 12 hours per night. I discussed this with the nurse when I called today and she said we just need to watch her because without any other symptoms they're not really worried about it...so who knows. She was however concerned about the yeast infection and said that we can try Nystatin again for a couple days, but if it doesn't work we need to come into the office.

I've tried to find any info on recurrent yeast infections in children and what can cause them but I've come up empty handed...but i don't think it was: bubble baths, baby soap, laundry detergent, non-zinc based diaper cream, or the wipes we were using since we've eliminated all of those things and she's still getting them.

But the big news of the week....Fi got her ears pierced!!!