The Saga Continues...

I hope to finish the retelling of this story here, now so that it can be closed in 2006 and not revisited ever again! So, the urgent care dr. diagnosed Joshua with Fifth's disease, which is a virus. They made their diagnosis based on the rosy cheeks that he had developed that morning on the ride from Vegas. I asked about his lack of eating and drinking and my concern for dehydration and the dr said that he was ok, that once he got the medicine in him then he would start eating and drinking again. As long as we could get a little water in him every hour, he would be fine.

We returned home, picked up the script for Zyrtec and gave it to Joshua. He was pretty sleepy. We had a wonderful visit from the Owens side of the family and then Christmas Eve, Trina and I went to church. The guys and Mom and Dad O stayed home preparing and putting Joshua to bed. It was a nice service and it felt good to be at church.

Christmas - Joshua woke up a few times in the night and when he did I offered milk to him to drink. He had a few sips. He woke at 6:30am for the day and I brought him back to bed and gave him the bottle to finish. He finished it... and then threw it all back up on himself, Jason and me. Needless to say, we JUMPED out of bed and ripped the sheets off and then went to clean ourselves and Joshua up. The morning after that was fairly normal. Joshua was very tired but he did show interest in some of the wonderful presents that Santa, Grandma, Papa, Aunt Trina, Uncle Josh, Mommy and Daddy had brought for him. He got a Radio Flyer Tricycle and some very adorable clothes (to name a few things). He ate a couple of bites of food and had a few sips of water all morning. The lack of eating and drinking was getting scary. We gave him his next dose of medication when he was supposed to have it and took him for a walk, he fell asleep so we put him down for a nap. The rest of the day/evening was very business with the big family Christmas. He was very clinging, he continued to not eat and drink and he threw up once on Jason and then once when we went to put him to sleep. Finally, at 9 or 10 when the festivities had come to a close I was able to look up some information. The fifth's diseas diagnosis had been worrying me because he should have been getting better. When I checked the internet, I found that he only had one symptom of the virus, the rosy cheeks, but he had about 8 of the symptoms of dehydration. The site said we should be feeding him a teaspon of liquid a minute but he would take anything. I started trying everything to get him to drink - we had already tried pedialyte, pedialyte pops, water in a glass, milk, an eyedropper of fluids, nothing was working. I set a timer and tried to feed him fluids in his sleep. It worked once. Jason came in around 11:30 from the living room - we decided that it was time to seek help and called our dr in maryland. The dr said he needed to go to the emergency room. So at midnight on Christmas night we headed to the hospital.

The wait was two hours before we were seen. Once the Dr. examined him and determined that he was indeed dehydrated, she started him on an iv drip of 200 mL per hour. He screamed hysterically for one hour until they gave him tylonel with codeine. He was admitted to the hospital at 5am and the drip was decreased to 10 mL per hour. Once hydrated they needed to try and get him to want to eat and drink on his own. That finally happened on Tuesday evening but the dr. had already scheduled to have him stay the night and I was grateful that he would be in hospital one more night under supervision. They discharged him Wednesday morning at 10:15 am. He was a different boy - alert, playful, skin bright and full, lips no longer dry, eating and drinking.

We went back to Grandma and Papa O's house to nap and get ready for our red eye flight home. Joshua did well on the flight. I thought with the cold and congestion that he still had he would scream the whole way but he was ok. He had diarhea on the first leg but the dr said to expec that. We got into our home airport at 8:45am and were home to our house at 11:30 ish. Grandma V came home with us to help and we mostly just ate lunch, took care of the dogs and napped. That brings us about up to 3:25pm Thursday, where I began typing this story.

Joshua is doing great now. He is bright and happy. He is eating well and he will never remember any of this. If only Mommy and Daddy were so lucky. We will be happy to ring in the new year and put the last week behind us.

The beginning of the story...

We flew out to Grandma and Papa's on the 17th. Joshua still had a cough but he was doing well and he had a great flight. This being his third flying trip he is now a well seasoned traveler. :-) Monday and Tuesday were pretty low key days, we were just adjusting to the time zone and visiting. On Wednesday, Joshua visited with his cousins Sawyer and Jasper and got to see Aunt Nancy, Joy, Tami, Shannon and Grandma. It was a fun visit. He liked having other LP's (Little People) to play with. On Thursday, he went with us to visit Jason's friends for pizza and lights. Although, he konked out before we got to the lights and returned to Grandma and Papa's house to sleep. He liked it at Kelsey's(3) house, especially the large floor piano that she had. She was a bit concerned that he might try and leave with one of her toys but she did like the company.

Friday morning we were up early to head out to see Uncle Josh and Aunt Trina and the gang out their way. That is when the bad, deep cough began. We called our dr. and she told us the signs to look for if we needed to take him in. He already was eating only a little bit. He hadn't been eating well for a many days. His nose was runny and he was a bit cranky. The crankiness, coughing, inability to sleep well only got worse on Saturday and Sunday. He did however in that time enjoy a nice Christmas dinner with Aunt Wayneen, Uncle Bud and everyone on their side of the family. He got to see the Belaggio Christmas decorations, which were fantastic, and he went to visit all sorts of animals at a nearby state park. He saw ducks, geese, chickens, peacocks and horses. That was a highlight of the trip.

Sunday, on the way back from Aunt Trina and Uncle Joshua's we stopped at the urgent care center to have him looked at. The had crossed the threshold of what our dr. said were the signs that he needed to be taken in. more later...

How I spent my Christmas Vacation

You would expect a title like this from a school essay following summer break but I thought it was appropriate for our trip out to California this year. It was a hard trip and for anyone that has been in touch with us since Christmas that know what has been going on you understand what I mean when I say that it was 'a hard trip'. Coming home has been a relief but we still have not had that deep relaxing sigh you often take when returning home after a long trip. I will fill you in on what has happened since 3:25pm yesterday afternoon and then I will back track to Dec 17 when we left for our vacation.

We had gotten a follow-up appointment for Joshua for 4pm yesterday after returning home and were just about to walk out the door when he slipped, dropped the bowl of cheerios that he had been carrying and it shattered then he fell on it. He almost escaped unscathed but did end up cutting his hand. We were already on our way out the door to the drs office. Our neighbor, a paramedic, said that he should be ok so we left, with a butterfly bandage over the cut and got to the office. Luckily, the cut was deep but not wide and the dr said it would not need stitches. His dehydration has been rectified although he has lost a lot of weight and we need to work on packing on the pounds now. He will have a weigh check in a month or two when he is all better.

His cough was the next concern and after listening to his lungs the dr. put him on a nebulizer machine with albuteral. He responded well so we now own a neb machine and will be treating him twice a day until tuesday when he will be rechecked. He has infant asthma which is not uncommon for children who have excema and a family history of hay fever type allergies.

After the dr.'s visit we stopped to get his medication and some food and headed home. He fell asleep in the car and slept from 6:20-8:00 when we were getting ready to head to bed. We got him up, fed him and did our normal bed time routine. He went back down but didn't stay asleep. We finally got him to sleep at 10:15pm and he has been asleep ever since (it is 9am now) He is exhausted from many hard days and nights of little sleep and a lot of stress. We all are and are looking forward to a low key, laid back weekend.

I hope that is where our story ends. I will fill you in on the beginning later. For now, it is time for breakfast and a soothing cup of tea.

Another Tooth

We have been watching Joshua's bottom left molar. It has been pushing and growing and making it's way into Joshua's mouth and lo and behold we missed the tooth above it breaking through!! Joshua has about 4 teeth on their way now.

Preparing for Grandma's

This week has been busy as we prepare for Grandma's. We had Joshua's Christmas pictures taken on Monday at Walmart and we have been getting together with friends and family to exchange gifts and celebrate the season. On Sunday we had the Godparents over for dinner, Monday was Kim and Ellie, Tuesday we went to the Jacksons... Busy, Busy, Busy... but lots of fun.

Here is Joshua checking out a new ornament on the tree:



Here he is looking a lot like a photo I have see of his Grandma O.:

Joshua FINALLY got some sleep. Jason put him down when he woke up last night and Josh ended up sleeping 13 hours and then taking a two hour nap today. What a relief. He was still tired today and it looks like he is coming down with a virus but he is in good spirits.

After nap time today we went with Stephanie and her father (our neighbor) to a local farm and had fresh ice cream. Yes it was 41 degrees today but we got Christmas flavors (pumpkin, peppermint, etc) He had fun.

Noella will likely come home tomorrow after they remove the drain from the incision. I'll update here when she does. She is doing well.

I tried Christmas outfits on Joshua today. I found one I liked at JC Penney so I may go tomorrow and pick it up. I haven't really been happy with any of the ones that I have found so far. Let me know what you think of the ones in the photos....

Bath Time!

First of all, I visited Noella again this afternoon. She is much more swollen and bruised today. In fact, she is unable to open her eyes because her face is that swollen. However, this is not un-expected. She is doing VERY well and they have removed all of the iv's from her little body. She is only being monitored for heart rate and temp and she still has the drain in her head. She is eating well and moving around. She has been pulling off her bandages so she is feeling spunky :-)

Joshua had a terrible night last night. He went to bed ok and then woke up at 11:45pm. Determined that I was not going to bring him back to bed AGAIN I decided to try and get him back into his own bed.... 2 hours later Joshua won. He then woke up at 5:30 am and got up for the day at 6:45am. Definitely not enough sleep. Sonja was able to get him down for a nap at 10:15am and she and Jason woke him at 1:30 since they wanted him to sleep tonight. We then put him to bed early - 7pm. We are hoping for a better night tonight.

He did have fun tonight splashing in the bathtup with Jason taking photos. You can see them on our flickr account here is just one:

climbing

Joshua is climbing everywhere! Here he is on the kitchen table. He climbed up here about 5 times. I finally just moved the chairs into a room that he can't access so that I could cook dinner.

Noella is looking wonderful. I went to visit her today and was soooo happy to see my little princess :-)

Good News!

Noella's surgery went as the dr.'s had hoped and she is now recovering. They will be moving her down a floor this morning. We are hoping to visit around lunch time. They expect to discharge her Saturday or Sunday.

Joshua is down for a nap (9am) he was up at 5:30am and didn't sleep well last night. Mommy is going down for a nap now too!!

Praying for cousin Noella

Today is a day of prayer as Joshua's cousin Noella undergoes surgery on her skull to correct her bones from fusing prematurely.

Joshua likes to add words in groups. Yesterday he said, 'duck,' 'quack-quack,' 'Nettie,' and 'apple'. Language is really clicking for him now and he likes to add the names that he is learning to the objects that he is seeing.

Friday and Saturday

Yesterday was a monumentous day for Joshua. While I was at work he climbed out of the pack-n-play. We knew it was only a matter of time since he was showing signs the other day of climbing out of the crib, hence the reason we moved him INTO the pack-n-play. He hasn't done it again but the ability is there!

Also yesterday we went downtown to see Santa arrive on a fire engine. Josh was a little bit freaked out by the siren of the engine. But he did like seeing Santa. We didn't make him sit on Santa's lap. And, we were all impressed when Santa waved his arm and the Christmas tree lit up. He is amazing!! After that we walked around to a Christmas Shop and Joshua picked out his ornament for this year. It began to down pour while we were in the shop so we just stayed and wondered around. Joshua loved all the sparkling lights, bells, and little moving things to look at.

Today, we mostly just hung out. Jason is working on his final project and busy, busy, busy. This evening Joshua and I went to the church's going away party for our pastor. It was a surprise party and a lot of fun. Joshua finally eat a real meal. It has been since he got sick about two weeks ago that he has eaten anything substantial. He had a huge meatball, bread, cranberry sauce and a cookie. Since he has been looking a little bit thin, I was very pleased to see his appetite return!