Health Stuff

I am sooooo behind on blogging, so I'll be combining some events to try and catch up on everything I want to share.

A couple weeks ago, Marino got his first bad cut. While playing with Daddy, he tripped and hit his face on the side of a wooden stool. Evan called me downstairs and I was shocked to see blood all over Marino and all over he and Evan's shirts. After 15 minutes or so, the cut still opened every time we touched it, so I took him to the ER.

This is us waiting in the ER and hoping Ironman is using his powers to heal Marino's cut...

After waiting three hours, the PA came in and told us since the only "open" area of the cut was in the middle, stitches weren't needed. She said normally they would glue a laceration like his, but it was too close to his eye for that. So, we were told to keep it clean (ha!) and bandaged with antibiotic ointment.

Here's how he looked when we got home.

It ended up bruising a couple days later, but seems to be healing well.

We see a pulminologist quarterly to review Marino's asthma and allergies (as they relate to his breathing). They administer a test to see how well he is breathing and he LOVES this test! He breathes into a tube connected to a computer...the goal is to blow all the leaves off the tree to reveal the monkeys hiding in the branches. He is always so excited to go to this doctor to do this "game."

Who's the genius who thought this up?

We've seen a lot of improvement with his using Nasonex (nasal spray) in addition to his other allergy and asthma meds. The doctor said Marino is probably in the top 10 of his most allergic patients, so keeping the allergies under control is paramount to controlling his asthma. But all in all, he's doing well with our current treatment.

Tummy Owies

We had an extremely busy weekend: 3 birthday parties, a playdate with the cousins, Super Hero class and a trip to Annapolis. In retrospect, I think Marino had an illness brewing throughout the weekend, but couldn't quite explain it to me. By Sunday night, he was having bloody diarrhea (2-4 times an hour), a fever and extreme abdominal cramping. He would fall to the ground and start screaming in pain, curling up into a ball and saying "my tummy really really hurts!" We stayed home from school on Monday, but it just seemed to get worse. His fever got up to 102, the diarrhea was happening more frequently, the pain was worse and he started refusing to drink.

After talking to his pediatrician, I took him to the ER around 6PM on Monday. The ER doctors acted like I was suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy and wanting to subject my child to unnecessary pain and suffering for no good reason (this is also how I was treated when he had bacterial meningitis, so I just let them think I'm crazy and keep pushing for the care I think he needs). They seriously handed me a Gatorade and told me that should sufficient, before even running any diagnostic tests to see if he was dehydrated. At this point, he was having watery, bloody diarrhea 3-4 times an hour and a fever of 102. Somehow, I was fairly certain a few sips of Gatorade was not enough to keep him hydrated under the circumstances. "He looks good to me" said the ER doctor, without bothering to take any blood to check his potassium or electrolyte levels. I insisted on tests and an IV. The doctors rolled their eyes and explained to me that it would be painful. I explained that, given the situation, I felt like his recovery without an IV was going to be much slower, and his body would be weaker for days. "Well, you're going to have to stay here longer" they said. "That's fine" I replied. After perhaps the 6th time he had diarrhea once the IV started, the doctors finally decided he was actually sick and offered to admit him.

Here he is after getting his IV. He was not happy.

Once we got to the Pediatrics Unit, our hospital visit greatly improved. We stayed until Wednesday afternoon and he had an IV the whole time. The doctors told me to just keep offering liquids and anything he lost using the potty he would get back through the IV so not to worry. By Tuesday overnight he was up to pee every hour (not so easy with an IV pole/machine). Clearly he was rehydrated, so they took out his IV Wednesday morning and he was tolerating liquids and food. Everyone in the Peds Unit was wonderful and we had a doctor this visit that we had when Marino had bacterial meningitis as an infant. He was really interested in hearing our perspective on that looking at it from the other side, with a healthy child. I thought it was really insightful that he even thought to ask about our thoughts on that experience. He was amazed Marino is perfectly healthy and has no long term effects of his illness (it really is an amazing blessing).

Here he is on Tuesday, starting to eat again.

They covered his IV with a diaper but he was fascinated by it and kept saying "I want to check this out for a minute" and unwrapping the diaper to look at it. He actually asked the nurses not to remove the IV because he wanted to show his friends at school.

I was very proud of him; he was very pleasant and nice to all the doctors and nurses. Tuesday morning, the nurse brought in some movies and a popsicle for him and he said "Mommy, this is going to be great!" Later they offered him a popsicle and he said "Yeah, can I just take it home and eat it?"

Wednesday we got home and kept him hydrated with whatever he was willing to eat/drink, like watermelon...

Thursday and Friday he was still having abdominal pain and some diarrhea, but 1-2 times a day, nothing like earlier in the week. We had a follow up appointment with our pediatrician and she said we'll probably never know what caused the illness (all the tests came back negative). The diagnosis was "acute infective gastroenteritis NOS" (in other words, "we have no clue"). Our plan for the long weekend is to rest and get our boy back to his old self again.

5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week. Some of them are a bit sad, since he was very sick this week, but precious nonetheless.

5. Monday, he told me "I need a Lightning McQueen bandaid [pronounced "banday"]." " Where should I put it? ", I asked. "Um...on my lips [pronounced "yips"]" he said.

4. He threw up on Sunday (everywhere, it was awful) and he was really disturbed by it. "I'm not going to get my drip [drip = throw up] out anymore because Daddy already cleaned it off the floor" he told me.

3. On Monday, he told Evan on the phone "I don't feel so good. I gotta go to the doctor and get all better."

2. One of Marino's favorite stories is "The Three Little Pigs". The other day, we were reading it and one of the scenes shows the completed house of sticks. On that page, there is a small bird in the corner, folded up in his wings and looking sad. Marino pointed to the bird and said "Oh no. Little bird is sad because the pig took away all of his sticks." I was really impressed with his insight there, that he would have put together that the bird needs sticks and was upset that the pig used the sticks he needed for his own house.

1. Sydney's birthday party was Sunday (post coming soon) and Marino was so excited to sing happy birthday. He was loudly singing the whole walk over to the cake (where we were supposed to go to sing). Can't wait for his birthday this year!

To say this was a rough week would be an understatement. Out of nowhere, Marino developed a fever and began vomiting on Sunday afternoon. His fever got up to 104 overnight, which is the highest fever he's had. I took him to see the doctor on Monday and she showed me a blister on his tonsil - evidence of Coxsackie virus. Coxsackie is self-resolving, so she told us just to keep him on a diet of liquids and soft foods and keep up with Ibuprofen. Tuesday, I bought him some Campbell's chicken noodle soup for dinner. Well, as he was eating it, he broke out in hives. Evan checked the can and the soup is made with egg whites!!

Evan gave him the Epipen shot and Bendaryl, then Albuterol and Pulmicort. All seemed to be calming down until he broke out in head to toe hives, and his eyes are ear lobes started swelling! So, off to the ER we went. There, they gave him Pepcid (antihistamine) and steroids and kept us for observation until 2am. He was absolutely miserable. If you had seen him, you would have cringed. His eyes were little slits and he had blotchy red hives over ever inch of his body. It was awful. He improved slightly 3 hours after the medicine was given, so they let us go home.

The next morning, he still had swollen eyes and some hives on his face, but they improved by noon. We are doing Benadryl every 6 hours, round the clock, steroids once a day and Pepcid twice a day for several more days.

Pneumonia

This really came out of no where. Marino had a runny nose and cough on Wednesday, but nothing that seemed severe. Thursday morning he was cranky with the same symptoms, but no fever and the cough seemed to be from post nasal drip. I got a call from daycare around 4:30pm that Marino was coughing incessantly and wasn't responding to breathing treatments. When I got to daycare, he was having constant chest retractions (his chest was caving in with each breathe). With all of our prior issues, I'd never seen him have chest retractions before, so I called our pediatrician and took him straight to the ER from daycare.

Luckily, the hospital was very responsive and within minutes we had a respiratory therapist and a team of doctors and nurses helping. They did a chest x-ray, flu test, a RSV test, a white cell count and several nebulizer treatments. He responded to each of the breathing treatments, but only for a few minutes, then he went right back to the chest retractions. The chest x-ray showed pneumonia, so we were admitted. They're doing breathing treatments every 2 hours, IV steroids and antibiotics. His oxygen is also low, so they are trying to give him oxygen, but, um, have you ever tried putting a nasal canula on a 15 month old? Not so easy.

Updates tomorrow. Thoughts and prayers requested.

A Very Bad Night

You know how everything can change in the blink of an eye? There are a few times in my life where I would give anything just to change a few seconds. Here is the story of one of those times....

After our great day at the farm, Miranda, Pacey, Marino and I went to meet my Aunt Kerry, cousin Samantha, friend Patti and her daughter Madelyn at a restaurant to celebrate Kerry's birthday. When we got there, they were waiting outside for a table. We were all catching up, since we hadn't seen each other in a while. Marino caught sight of a light at the end of the walkway, so he was showing it to me (pointing). When he got closer, he stumbled and fell forward, putting his hands on the light to stop his fall. He started screaming, so I grabbed him and touched the light, which was burning hot!! It honestly never occurred to me that the light could be that dangerous! I ran him into the bathroom and put his hands under cold water, but he was freaking out. I asked the hostess to get me ice water, which I tried putting his hands in, but it was difficult, since he was completely inconsolable.

I finally decided to take him home, since his hands were still just pink and I wasn't sure if he was crying out of pain or fear. By the time we got home, his hands had blistered! I freaked and called 911, not knowing if there was something I should be doing to help him. The police and EMTs weren't able to do anything except take us to the hospital, but they distracted Marino enough to calm him down.

We got to the ER and they took care of us quickly. The doctor said he had 2nd degree burns on each hand (on one hand the main issue is the palm, on the other hand its the palm and 3 fingers). We have to keep both hands bandaged (except the thumb) with Silvadine (a topical antibiotic) to prevent infection. They also gave us a prescription for baby painkillers.

In the ER...see the bandages?

Monday we took him to the plastic surgeon. He couldn't really tell us much, except we need to keep his hands bandaged. We go back next Monday and he will tell us then if his hands will heal on their own, or if he will need grafting surgery. The whole thing is a total nightmare.

He clearly has pain in his hands and gets frustrated with not being able to do things (especially feed himself and pick up his toys). It's hard because we can't explain this to him...I'm sure he's just wondering why we're doing this. He did figure out how to hold his bottle, as you can see below.