Way Behind...

Where do I begin?  Life has been so hectic, its been hard to keep up with this lately.  Andrew finally recovered from his illness after 6 days of fever and we finally got back into our normal routine.  His biopsy results also came back and showed nothing significant.  Good news for him.  But frustrating because we still haven't found a reason for his lack of growth.  He did show evidence of chronic gastritis though and was put back on an acid blocker (after many calls and fights with the insurance company to get it approved!).  Dr. Darbari wants him to have monthly weight checks for the next couple months and we'll actually go to see a nutritionist next week to make sure we're doing all that we can.  I guess we'll keep pushing the calories and reassess in a couple months to see if he's made progress or needs more workup.

After one week of good health and our normal routine, Paige developed a fever again last weekend.  By Monday evening, she had blisters all over her tongue and was crying and saying "Owwwwie" repeatedly.  As we had suspected, the pediatrician agreed and thinks she has hand, foot, and mouth disease.  We are crossing our fingers that Andrew doesn't get it and we are lucky so far.  Poor Paige has been running high fevers and hasn't eaten much of anything now for 6 days.  We sure hope the end of this is in sight because it is awful to see her so miserable.  Thank God, my parents were in town and Nana was able to stay to be with Paige since she's missed daycare this entire week.  Its starting to feel like we can't catch a break around here.  How many more things can they get? And how many more days of daycare must they miss?  I repeat, Thank God for Nana!  We've had colds, Roseola, stomach bugs, multiple ear infections, strep, and now hand, foot, and mouth disease all within a couple months span.  I just hope we are building up one heck of an immunity in this house!

Despite our seemingly never ending illness, we have managed to have a little fun!  We got both a new pool and water table in the last couple weeks which the kids are loving in the hot weather.

Water fun!

Andrew - Memorial Day 2012

Such a perfect picture capturing her personality:)

We've had trips to the park, outings for pizza and ice cream, BBQs and visits with friends.  They are now 19 months and are more and more fun each day.  They are trying to repeat lots of words, climbing, jumping, singing, and dancing all the time.  They definitely have likes and dislikes and will make them known:)  We have entered our temper tantrum phase but are trying to set limits and be consistent with our discipline.  Heck, much of the time its just Mommy OR Daddy with them and then you're out numbered!  But most of all, we are loving how they are turning into little people...

BBQ at friends

Our first corn on the cob of the season!

Already stealing Mommy's makeup brushes and dancing in the hallway

Loving ice cream on the deck:)

A nightly walk in the neighborhood

Thanks for checking in!  And please send good, healthy vibes to little Miss Paige!

Our dynamic duo:)

Paige has been recovering nicely from her strep throat on her antibiotics, although her attitude has been a challenge!  We aren't sure if she still isn't feeling well or we are truly entering the "terrible two" phase a little early.  She had several major meltdowns this weekend with 30-60 minutes of crying, throwing herself on the floor and being downright mad.  If this is a new phase, we are praying that it is short lived!

We had planned to celebrate Mother's Day by heading about an hour outside the city to a family friendly winery to picnic with friends on Saturday.  As we came home from buying our pincic snacks, I noticed that Andrew felt warm.  Yep, he spiked a fever 2 hours before we were supposed to leave!  So instead of our fun day, he returned to the pediatrician.  Repeat strep was again negative.  But they noticed that he had an ear infection.  He is now on day three of antibiotics but is still spiking fevers!  They are only at night.  But they are high - 103 to 104!  He then seems fine during the day, running and playing.  He still isn't eating very much at all since his procedure though...we are hoping this picks up again soon. He gets one more day to stop this fever nonsense or he buys himself another trip to the doctor...

We did get out a little Sunday though and took a fun walk.  Paige LOVES to hold hands and reaches out for us whereever we go.  Andrew, on the other hand, refuses.  We wants to walk alone and it is a constant battle to make him hold on in public.  Well, on Sunday he decided that Paige's hand was really the only fun one to hold.  And they walked hand in hand on our entire walk.  It was adorable:)



Our dynamic duo:)



Dragging his sister along:)



And finding themselves hilarious!



Our little trooper

Andrew was amazing today.  From the second he arrived at Children's, he has very cautious.  He wouldn't play with the toys in the playroom.  He wouldn't wave or smile at anyone, which is very unlike him.  And he insisted on being held all morning.  But he let them do everything they needed.  He sat still for vitals, helped with taking off his clothes and changing into the gown and sat on the operating room table like a big boy to go to sleep.  He cried for only about 5 or 10 seconds before falling fast asleep. 

When we saw him in recovery, he was sleeping peacefully and it took him a little while to wake up.

Once he was awake, he was not very happy.  His tummy obviously hurt and he had a TON of gas.  He insisted on Mommy holding him but would thrash out of my arms trying to get comfortable.  Two fentanyl (pain medicine) doses later, he was a little better and agreed to drinking some juice.  Once we proved that he could come off the oxygen, tolerate some liquids and have decent pain control, we were able to leave.  It took about 3 hours.  We did meet with Dr. Dabari during this time and he told us that everything looked fine with the scope.  We won't have any real answers though until the biopsy results come back next week.

Nana and Paige were at home waiting for him and he perked right up when he got there.  Of course he had a recovery present and enjoyed tearing the paper off to see what was inside!

Within no time, he was outside, running up and down the sidewalk with his new bubble lawn mower!

Although Andrew's procedure was fairly easy and uneventful, Paige added some excitement to our day.  She came home from daycare early two days ago with a fever and had been rather irritable. She was pulling on her ears and complaining to us about them constantly and we were convinced that was the culprit.  Nana took her to ENT this morning while we were with Andrew for another ear check and they actually looked okay - definitely better than last week.  BUT they did notice that her tonsils had quite a bit of pus on them and much to all of our surprise, her strep culture was positive! Poor baby had a real fever by the time she was home and has been spiking to 103 all evening despite constant tylenol and motrin. We're just hoping she'll feel better tomorrow.

Even with her sore throat and fever, she couldn't be left out from the mowing fun!

Of course, we found out about Paige when Andrew was already under anesthesia, so this made us nervous about his recovery.  We called our pediatrician on our way home and they wanted to see him this afternoon for a rapid strep.  Luckily, his was negative because we didn't want to put him on an antibiotic course with his irritated gut.  We'll keep a close eye on him though.

I think the kid's favorite part of this experience and Andrew's 36 hours of clears was their first popsicle experience.

Of course he insisted on wearing his hat:)

Paige LOVED the idea of it and holding it herself but she is still undecided about the actual taste:)

Thanks for all the calls, emails and texts today!  It means a lot to know that so many of you were thinking about us!

Updates

Life is busy!  They are into EVERYTHING and moving EVERYWHERE.  We constantly have bumps and bruises from running too fast, banging into things, and of course, temper tantrums where we like to bang our heads on the floor.  Well, that's mostly Paige. And that's the fun new stage we're in! But most of the time, they are so fun and we are thoroughly enjoying this new, interactive age.  They are understanding more, saying more and doing more each day.  It's crazy how fast they change!

Paige in disguise at her cousin Nick's spy birthday party!

Our cutie - 18 months

Chit chatting on his "blackberry"

Our little flirt:)

All shopped out!

The best part about Costco - frozen yogurt!

Paige went back to ENT last Thursday for her tube follow-up appointment.  It wasn't exactly what we were hoping for though... She had fluid in both ears, although the right had more and was pretty badly infected.  So aggravating.  I thought we were getting tubes to avoid fluid and infection!  They told us that this isn't too uncommon and that now the tubes give us access to remove the fluid.  So we did.  And Paige was amazing. She sat perfectly still with tears welding in her eyes and let them suction out both ears.  Yet again, she made me so proud:)  We are now going to do another week of antibiotic drops and then we'll return for another ENT visit.  No point in checking her hearing since there was more fluid, so that will have to wait until the infection and fluid clears.

Andrew went back to the pediatrician for a final weight check Thursday, as well, before his procedure.  He had gained a couple ounces...but we still aren't quite where we were in October.  So, we go forward.  Endoscopy, colonoscopy and biopsy will happen this Thursday, May 10.  We were so hoping for enough weight gain and improvement that this wouldn't have to happen, but such is life.  The horrible part is that he has to begin a four day bowel cleanse tomorrow and then will only be able to have clear liquids for 36 HOURS before the procedure.  Wednesday is going to miserable for our poor, hungry, little guy.  Thank goodness Nana is here to help watch him this week.  We couldn't possibly send him to daycare with runny poops...not to mention that he would have to watch the other kids eat on Wednesday without being offered any!  We've got lots of popsicles, jello and pedialyte and are just hoping to keep him distracted with fun things!

Thanks, Nana, for coming to help!

I'll be sure to post an update after Thursday - we should get some preliminary results right away from the pictures, although biospy results will take at least a week to come back.  Wish us luck!