A long 2 weeks

Where to begin…. For starters, Natalie still does not have tubes in her ears. But she does get them this Thursday.

Two weeks ago Natalie was not acting like herself and was running a bit of a fever. With our ear thermometer it was reading 100.8. For an infant cutting teeth this does not seem high but she was whimpering and sleeping a lot!!! Again at first this was a good thing and then she started not only sleeping all night but a large part of the day as well. In addition to the rest of the symptoms she was also not breathing normally. She seemed to be breathing out more than in. So I got to talking to on of the neighbors who is a L&D nurse and she suggested that we go ahead and take Natalie into the ER for good measure. When we got to the ER the nurse took her temp and it was at 103. She had Tylenol 2 hours prior. The nurse then started telling us that she was VERY sick. All Joe and I could keep thinking was WOW and we were just bringing her in for good measure! The she started telling us that when we got to the back that the Dr. would probably start an IV for antibiotics and then do a urine cath and a spinal tap. It was at that point that I lost it. A SPINAL TAP!!! WHAT?!?! Needless to say we were a bit shocked. The nurse came in and took the blood and urine and then the doctor came in to do the spinal tap. We were able to go home that night since there was nothing in her spinal tap that indicated that we needed to stay. That night she also received two shots of antibiotics one in each leg.

Day 2: We went to the doctor and she got yet another shot of antibiotics and was given the once over. Fast forward to 1am technically on Day 3. We got a call from the hospital requesting that we bring Natalie back in that night to have blood work redone as the blood sample that they got showed positive blood cultures. After calling my Mom and the Ped. At 1 in the morning we did not end up taking her in. Took her back to the doctor for another round of shots in the morning and then it was off for blood work. On the way to have her blood drawn I got wonderful news that my Dad could come in and take care of Natalie for the rest of the week so that Joe and I could be at work. It was great!!! Dad came in on Tuesday night to take care of the princess and then my Mom came in on Thursday night to help out. They ended up leaving on Saturday and we thought we were in the clear. As my Dad would say… there we go thinking again. Another Sunday, another trip to the ER. Her fever was up again to 101 with Tylenol so the on call doctor had us take her in. This time we were given the once over and sent away. Since then she seems to be doing ok. She takes her Tylenol every 4 hours without missing a beat. We hope that this will be all over by Friday.

During all of this she also had her six month apt. She is now 18 lbs. and 26 1/5 inches long.

Here are some pictures of her last week when she was sick. She has this new thing with sticking out her tongue at everyone.

With Grandma Karen at the Irish Festival.




With Grandpa Mike on the swing

Teeth and Tubes

Well last Friday when we got home from daycare Natalie was chewing on anything she could get in her mouth including my fingers. I noticed that she had a tooth just starting to come in. Yesterday when we were at the ENT he said that she had 2, low and behold she does. She is too busy chewing her tongue for me to get a picture. I will try this weekend.

So yes, we took her to the ENT yesterday and he ran some tests. He showed 100% blockage in her left ear and 80% in her right from all the fluid. I asked if this was affecting her hearing... he said that long term this will not since she is so young. But right now if you were to take ear plugs and put them in your ears and then take the headphones that they wear in the pits of car races and put those on that is about the way she is hearing. I am very disappointed in her pediatrician that she did not refer me to an ENT. I will be in the process of finding a new one now. Joe and I were talking and we are glad that we trusted our instincts to go around the pediatrician and take her to an ENT ourselves, this could have been so much worse had we waited. So tubes next Thursday. Dr. said that we should see a huge difference by Friday. He also said that now when she cries in the middle of the night it will not be out of pain from her ears and we can let her cry it out for a while.

I hope to get pictures this weekend of the teeth and will post them soon. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.