Ear Infection

When will this bout of illnesses leave our family? Fortunately, Dan and I are healthy for the time being. But poor Ethan, he (and I) barely got any sleep late Friday night/early Saturday morning. The poor kid cried his eyes out until 4am, when I think he finally passed out from sheer exhaustion. The only time he would calm down is when I'd pick him up from his crib and hold him and rock him in the glider. I could tell he wasn't feeling well but couldn't pinpoint what was wrong - no fever, no runny nose, no symptoms of any kind as far as I could tell. Saturday morning, Ethan woke up at 8:30 and did develop a 2 degree fever and was still fussy (who blames him with only 4 hours sleep!). So while I got to sleep in a bit and get ready for the day, I urged Dan to call the urgent care office of our pediatrician to figure out what was wrong. Dan managed to get Ethan a 10am appt. and graciously took Ethan to it so I could have some time off.

What did I do with that time off? Last year for Mother's Day/my birthday (same weekend), Dan gave me a spa certificate and here it is, a week from my birthday (aka - the expiration date on the certificate!) and I had yet to redeem it. So Friday morning, I called and booked myself a 1 hour Swedish massage appointment that I couldn't cancel. So I took full advantage of my morning off to pamper myself (funny that Pampering Ourselves was the topic at MOPS last week!). And while I had a nice, leisurely morning/afternoon, my boys anxiously waited at the peds for 30+ minutes past their appt. time before being taken to an exam room for their appt.

Turns out that our poor little man has a double ear infection. Nothing that more Amoxicillin can't cure, huh? So, we took it easy the rest of the weekend to catch up on rest and let the little guy try to get better. We're keeping him comfortable with children's ibuprofen and treating the infection with a more expensive form of Amoxicillin than what we were prescribed 2 weeks ago for the "possible" strep.

Not Strep

So Ethan's slowly getting better. We finally (last Thursday I initiated the call) heard back from the peds. office and it turns out the other strep test was also negative. I think it's just another cold/runny nose. Since the ped. was so wishy-washy about whether or not to cotinue all 10 days of the Amoxicillin after we found out the result of the 2nd strep test and since it didn't seem to be making any difference, we decided to d/c the Amoxicillin ourselves. Ethan's sleep schedule was getting thrown off by us forgetting to wait a whole 12 hours and we decided sleep was more important than an antibiotic that wasn't working. Sleep seems to be the best medicine right now. Ethan's been sleeping his normal 11-12 hours again at night and adding an extra hour or two to his afternoon nap time (4 hours instead of 2-3)!

Strep?

Ethan had a rough night on Sunday - we put him to bed at regular time but 5 hour later, after lots of crying, coughing, holding his throat, runny nose, Tylenol, and Benadryl, we finally got him to fall asleep. When he woke up Monday morning, he was a little rested but still feeling pretty miserable and just had that "sick look". So I called the pediatrician and got him in for early afternoon (during nap time). Having known that he was exposed to strep last week, I was able to talk the doc into running a strep test. The rapid test came back negative and we should know the other test result by Wed. (tomorrow). The doc (which by the way was the best one we've seen yet in that office!) did say that Ethan's throat looked red and swollen but no puss so he didn't think the other test would come back positive but went ahead and prescribed Amoxicillin just in case. You know these heart babies - you can't take any chances and he's definitely got some kind of illness - and the doc kept repeating that it doesn't look like a viral bug so he still recommended us finishing the full 10 days of the antibiotic even if the test does end up negative tomorrow.

Soooo, we're just laying low today, trying to let Ethan catch up on rest since he didn't sleep well Sunday night and didn't get a nap yesterday. He did sleep all night long last night though, so that was good. So if you get the chance, keep us in your prayers this week that this bug will not last long and that Ethan can get to feeling better soon.

Also, please keep our other heart buddies in your prayers - especially baby Stellan who had to have surgery this morning to try to fix his rapid heart rate (SVT). I haven't posted about Stellan before as he's one of our newest heart friends but I'll add his link on the right with our other heart friends. And also remember to keep princess Lindsay and Sofia in your prayers as they have both been waiting multiple months for a new heart - both at University of Michigan (U of M).

Family Update

Well it's been a pretty uneventful past couple of weeks here in the Miles' household. Ethan is continuing to do well physically and stay very active like all the other kids his age. He babbles all the time but still doesn't say much that we can understand so we're continuing to work on vocabulary and adding more sign language for him. Below is a list of what he knows so far:

WORDS:

* Da-Da

* Ma-Ma

* Ba-Ba (for bye-bye)

* Nuh-Nuh (for night-night)

* Guh-Go or Ma-Mo (for Elmo)

* Hoo-Hoo (for dirty "poo-poo" diaper)

* Bah (for ball)

* Mimi (for Julie's mom)

* Bop-Pop (or Pop-Pop for Julie's Dad)

* Ca-Ca (for Aunt Jessica and for chocolate!)

* Bo-Bo (for Uncle Brandon)

* Be-Be (for baby)

* Ah Gun (all done/all gone)

* Nana (for banana)

SIGNS:

* more (accompanied by saying "m-m-m")

* milk

* all done/finished (accompanied by "ah gun" for all gone)

and we're working on learning please, thank you, help, hurt, juice & water this month

Ethan can also point to various body parts and knows the sounds for several animals. He loves the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes" and "If You're Happy and You Know It" - both usually get him giggling or at least distract him from crying if he's upset.

In other news, all 3 of us have had some kind of cold/sinus/allergy problem on and off since around Valentine's day. Just as soon as we think we're on the mend from one sickness, we get sick all over again. Dan's been feeling the worst and finally went to the doctor last Monday (3/30). His doctor said he's got Pertussis (whooping cough) and quite possibly also RSV - scary!

Fortunately, I think Ethan's received enough doses of the DTaP vaccine (P being for Pertussis) that I don't have to worry about him contracting it but I am still being very careful about Ethan's exposure to RSV. This is the big respiratory virus that can be life-threatening (if left untreated) to preemies and young babies (mainly under 6 months old) who have other heart/lung issues.

In case you don't remember or just found our story, RSV is the same virus that we had to safeguard against last winter by having Ethan get monthly antibody shots from Oct.-April. Due to several factors this year: 1) Ethan's older, 2) he doesn't have his next surgery any time soon, and 3) his 2nd heart surgery/hospital stay was significantly cheaper than those shots, we opted to pass on those shots this time around.

Well sorry for the long update. For making it to the end of this post, here's some pictures I took the other day!

Mimi & Pop-Pop with their 2 grandchildren!

Enjoy a home-made chocolate chip cookie!

Still eating and making a mess!

cousin Annie's arrival

Well, she's here! Ethan's cousin Annie made her arrival at 5:01pm today, 3/14/09 - on her due date! She's 8lb. 2oz., 21" and so pretty. She's got dark hair and blue eyes. We hope to take Ethan over to the hospital to meet his little cousin tomorrow after church.

Sedated Echo

Well, we survived the sedated echo (ultrasound of the heart) at UNC yesterday. It was a crazy day from start to finish. I'll do my best to keep it brief and to the point! Let me just say, our 1 hour appointment turned into 4 hours!

We arrived a few minuts early (as requested in our confirmation letter from the cardiology nurse) to fill out the required paperwork. Turns out there was some kind of mix up and even though cardiology had us on their calendar, they must've forgotten to put it in the hospital registration system! So then we had to get the run around because the registration folks had no clue what to do with us without an official appointment. They called the peds cath lab (where our appointment was supposed to take place) and the cath lab nurse told the registration folks to let us just come on back and they'd get everything fixed.

Once we got back to the cath lab, we had to wait at least half an hour for them to get us in the system and checked in and fill out paperwork. Then it was time to start sedation. By this point (9:30am) Ethan was already tired from being up 2 hours (this is about the time he would just be getting up). And it didn't help at all that he wasn't allowed to eat after 3am and no drinks after 6am. From the time we arrived, he just kept saying "nigh-night" and I told him that's what we were here to do - to take a nap. The nurse started with an oral dose of Versed to make him loopy and careless. His nurse warned us that if the oral med didn't help, they'd have to do an IV. Well sure enough, the med had the opposite affect - it made him more alert!

So, sure enough, the IV was ordered. This same nurse attempted to give Ethan an IV twice but both times the IV blew and so she had to call in some help. After 2 more attempts, they finally got a good vein in his right foot. Poor little guy was just miserable during all the poking and prodding. This just broke my heart to the point of tears at watching him endure all the pain - just to get him to take a nap! This whole process took the longest part of the day - lasting almost 2 hours. The hardest part was being asked to be the one to help hold him down while they tortured him. Now today he's got bruises in both arms, wrists, and feet.

Once he was asleep, we were able to call in the sonographer to begin the echo. This only took about an hour and we got to watch. Everything looks great with Ethan's heart function right now, so we're thankful for that! We are scheduled for another echo (not sedated, thankfully!) at the end of July and by that time, Ethan should be a little more cooperative since it'll be just a few weeks before his 2nd birthday!

After the echo, we had to wait around about another half hour for the anesthesia to wear off and let Ethan have some crackers, cheese and 2 juice boxes of apple juice. Once his nurse felt he was alert and coherent enough again, we finally got out of there! By that time, Dan and I were hungry so we went to my favorite place to eat around there - Mama Dip's! If you live in the are and have never been, you really ought to check it out sometime. It's one of the best southern-cooking restaurants around! Ethan was pretty cranky and irritable during the meal so we made it a quick meal.

Then we proceeded to make the hour drive back home and Ethan slept most of the way but then woke up once we got home and decided he'd had enough sleeping for the day. So we had a busy afternoon/evening keeping a close eye on him as he was still a little clumsy until dinnertime.

See, I told you it was a crazy day! Thanks for checking in on us. We don't have any other appointments coming up soon so we hope to just stay healthy and out of doctors offices/hospitals, except for visiting Ethan's cousin Annie when she's born - she's due on Saturday so we look forward to meeting her soon!

Sick but on the mend

So we've all had a cold for the past 11 days but I think we're finally on the mend. It started last Tuesday when I picked Ethan up from the MOPS nursery at church and they said he had a runny nose. We came home and he was fine the rest of the day but then started again the next day. By last weekend, Dan and I started having an itchy throat and coughing and then Ethan started coughing as well. Dan and Ethan stayed home from church last week. I would've stayed home as well but I'm facilitating a Financial Peace University Sunday school class at church and last week was the first week.

For those of you not from NC who read this blog, we enjoyed 3" of snow on Monday then it gradually warmed up all week and now this weekend we're having upper 70's - low 80's, so it's no wonder it's hard to stay well this time of year! I also babysat Ethan's cousins 2 days this week and they were both sick so it's been a crazy week. Between our family's coughing and the cousins having earaches and fever, I've been sanitizing and cleaning like crazy. I finally broke down on Thursday and took Ethan to the pediatrician to make sure his cold hasn't turned into anything more and fortunately it hasn't. I was surprised to learn that even though he's had a decreased appetite this week, he's still managed to gain nearly 3 pounds since our last cardiology visit at the end of January - he now weighs almost 28 pounds! As for his cold, poor little guy, the doc said I'm doing all I can do for him right now, he's just got to ride it out. As a result, none of us have been sleeping well and I'm sure that isn't helping us to get better any faster either.

Oh, and with all the craziness in our lives recently, I forgot to post that we finally heard back from the Cardiology Dept. at UNC and we're scheduled to do the sedated echocardiogram (ultrasound of Ethan's heart) this coming Tuesday, March 10 at 9:00 AM. He can't have anything to eat after midnight but he can have clear liquids until 6:00 AM. The procedure is only supposed to last about an hour and if all goes well, we should be able to come home as soon as Ethan wakes back up. So please keep us in your prayers that all will go smooth that day.

On the lighter side, Ethan has added a new word to his vocabulary - he can now say "bah, bah" for bye-bye - do we have a Southern kid or what! He's also learning to throw a ball, sign the word for "more", and he loves to climb on everything - especially the coffee table.

Thanks for checking in on us. We'll update again after the echo on Tuesday.