Keepin' the ER in business

Mama needs a nap. Ok, now I've had my self centered moment. It's really about Max.

The events of today were so bizzarre! He hasn't had any sypmtoms of being sick, no fever, cough or runny nose... NOTHING but a swollen gum from a new tooth! (Yay! #4 this week, oy vey.)

I got home late last night, and went to peek in on him to see how he did his first time with Daddy and bottles. He pops awake and let out a loud barky cough. It made me jump because of the unexpected sound! He was fine when I left earlier that night! He was awake the entire night after that, crying, and wheezing and coughing. Again, no fever.

So 5 AM I woke James up to sit in the bathroom with him while the shower filled the room with steam. It seemed to help, until he left the bathroom. It started all over again. But he got so upset, and was so exhausted, he was crying so hard that he was hyperventilating. He started climbing UP my body, thrashing, and really fighting to get air. SCARY. Pediatricians office doesn't open until 8, and who knows when they can fit ya in, so off to the ER me and little man headed.

They said it was croup, which causes inflammation of the larynx area, not the bronchial, and the swelling compresses and causes the bark and wheeze. They had to give him a nebulizer treatment of racmic epinephrine to decrease the swelling reaction, and an oxygen tube in his little nose :( Then they gave him an oral steroid. They said he should be fine with some tylenol to keep the inflammation down, so I started asking about viruses and croup.

"Well, a number of viruses could cause the reaction, most of which is RSV or Influenza."

Ok, could you find out please, I have a very delicate little boy with a compromised immune system to all things respitory at home, I need to know what he may be at risk for. They did a swab test, came back for RSV. You're kidding! He has no symptoms!

But we went in within the first 12 hours of any issue, so the good news is that it may just be he had an exposure and his body may deal with it appropriately and be on its way. He may not demonstrate symptoms, it was just coincidental that I insisted on a test and sure enough it was positive.

Here's to hoping poor little Max doesn't have any further issues with this. But he did make a lot of girlfriends while there, one nurse after another kept coming in saying "I've heard about this cute baby, I've got to come see."

Phone call

The pediatrician called this morning on her way into the office. She has partial results back. Sedimentation rate for inflammatory tissue diseases was 30, normal would be 1. But she said over 50 would be when we should consider finding a rheumetologist, over 100 would be conclusive diagnosis. His is just 30, which means he's fine now. But when he reaches puberty he may show more signs of juvenile RA. For now, he may just show signs when he is going through a normal illness process.

Platelet count was also up. (platelets help the blood clot.) His count is up because of Kawasaki Disease causing stress to his heart, but she wasn't concerned about the vital signs of his heart at the check up to worry about blood clots. It could take a month after an illness like that to return to a normal level.

So for now, she said things look 'good' in terms of not feeling necessary to seek out specialists to manage a condition that he hasn't developed yet. But we will need to watch symptoms as he develops and hopefully with a proper diet to help his body we can steer clear of it in the future too.

We're still waiting on the virus panel and antibody panel. And the pathologist will read the platelet count smear to determine more conclusively on the blood clotting issue, but she wasn't too concerned from the level. More to come.

Testing, one two three

Lots of tests for Kellan to come.

Maybe I've gotten to the point where I am a nervous nelly over Kellan, or maybe the Lord is just moving me in a peculiar direction in answering my prayers for understanding and answers to helping Kellan, I don't know. But this week, a friend's daughter was observed for Kawasaki disease, thankfully it turned out not to be what she had afterall. But I wondered "what's that?" so I looked up a lot of info about it, and as I sat reading some things, it led me to think "This sounds like Kellan!" (his last illness of the walking pnemonia, and the process the entire illness took.) So I read for several hours that night feeling like I had some direction to go in.

I called the pediatrician's office the next morning to talk to them about coming in for a check up, one of the things with Kawasaki Disease is that it is inflammatory, and it causes blood vessels to dialate- especially the heart. It can cause heart damage. It can also be an indication of an inflammatory disease liklihood for the child. Children under 5 don't manifest every symptom, they need only to manifest 3 out of 12, he had almost all of them.

So we went in this morning for the beginning of several tests. Heart sounds fine, no irregular patterns or rapid beat, so the likelihood of heart damage is minimal. The Doc isn't as concerned about Kawasaki disease today though as she is other things. If it was or wasn't isn't the issue- he's over it anyway. It's the aftermath we are dealing with now. And he did react with indications of an inflammatory disease of some kind. So atleast it got me on a path of figuring SOMETHING out now.

She is concerned that it may be juvenile rheumetoid arthritis (RA) or Lupus. Even Celiac's disease. (Allergy to wheat) So they drew some blood to run a whole slew of things like the rheumetoid factors, celiac antibodies, various viruses that attack the joints and bowels. All we know today is that his white blood cell count is up. We'll know some more friday and next week when it all comes back in.

He has an appointment in July for an EKG to check his heart vitality to make sure no damage has occured or settled in. With Kawasaki disease it can take 5-6 weeks for the blood vessles to return to normal size and function, his illness ended 2 weeks ago. So to learn anything today wouldn't do much good, there is no protocol. We go in July for that to make sure there is no damage that may make him prone to heart disease. So far there is no indication of his heart being affected, just his inflammatory response instead.

So while it may seem like an odd way of going about answering prayers, I'm thankful that Tiffany's child had that experience even if it was wrongly suspected, to make me question "What is that?" Because it's giving us some answers now about our Kellan.

So if the Lord is hearing my prayer, I hope he hears the many of returning my boy back to the healthy tank he used to be, and I hope this is the right direction.

Beat the heat

If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen, right? I'm trying to stay out of it as much as possible every day come dinnertime this summer. My air conditioner might as well be disconnected if I have my oven on at dinnertime in July/August. So I'm planning my time to where I cook in the morning while the kids are outside in the back yard playing.

Today we woke up early and went to the farmer's market, then the beef store near my house for some fresh local cuts of beef. (Antibiotic free! This is the leanest beef I have ever bought, they are pasture fed grass cows, so great.)

So when we got back from errands, I put the baby down for his morning nap, and this is what I cooked with the beef I bought (and cleaned up) in 2 hours:

Italian Meatballs
Sloppy joe meat
Taco meat
Meatloaf
Cowboy Pizza (beef and turkey bacon)
Pizza dough in the kichenaid
Honey Bourbon Ribeyes
Garlic/White wine ribeyes
Spaghetti
Hamburger pattis for the grill
and 1 lb seasoned beef for a quick thing like Annie's Stroganoff kit

Oh. And lunch for the kids too. All of it is nicely filling up my freezer now.

$40 for 10 meals, 2 of which are ribeye steaks! Add with them fresh veggies from the garden during the summer makes for a cheap grocery budget. Who says you can't eat organic cheaply? Ha! And I'm done cooking for the next three weeks pretty much from the chicken meals I made last week.

More time with my babies!

Dialogue at my house

I washed Maren's Hello Kitty doll in the laundry and handed it to her today as I was putting things away. She came up to me a minute later and wrapped her arms around my legs thanking me. I bent over a little to hug her and said "Aw, I love you." To which she says "I didn't say I love you, I said 'Thank you'." Well then!

Kellan has been trying really hard to say his 'th' sound instead of 'ff' at the end of words like 'with.' Yesterday he says "Is it my turn to get in the baff?" I reminded him "You mean bath?" He says "That's what I said, baff!" Me: "Okay, but say baaa-th, I know you can do it." And he just redirects and says "Is it my turn to get in? I don't want to say that word for you anymore." Hmmph!

And Max said his first word today. It was ...drumroll please...

Crap.

Ok, it was babble. But he's been making 'k' noises, yesterday it was 'cup-a-cup' all day. And then it was a big loud "Crap" followed by blowing raspberries and yelling as I was putting his jammies on. Amen little dude! I think 'Crap' everytime someone puts me in zipper jammies too!

My husband...

Is a great guy. He really is. He's super smart and loves talking more in technical terms instead of layman's terms. He reads books on navigating a boat by the stars *just in case one day he might have to do that.* He is better at canning and preserving food than I am. He stayed up later after the kids went to bed just to make me a chocolate cake so I could have a piece while I watched 'The Bachelorette'

But...

He's a nerd. He can knock the socks off ya if you try to match him in movie quoting. He gets so into movies like Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Carribean, and X-Men series. He shaved his beard last night... it looks a little like this:

How much can you pack into one weekend?

Friday night I took the kids over to "Simply Hawaiin" in Wesley Chapel area for Kid Karaokee fun with the Kiggins! Maren and Connor did a little ode to Beyonce with "Single Ladies (put a ring on it)" And they rocked it! Kellan got shy and didn't go sing with them, but then he got his heart broken that he didn't get a turn. He quickly got over it when I offered to let him pick his own movie to rent at Blockbuster. *Cara, the software on my flip phone isn't behaving nicely, I'll have to just bring over the camera and show you sometime. Maybe it will behave for your computer? grrr.

The next morning Maren and Kellan got ready fast and left with James to have a sleepover with Grandma in S.C. They had a blast riding horses, ATV's, and ran themselves ragged. They were so hyped up on sugar when we picked them up today that they barely noticed! Thanks for that Grandma... sigh...

While the noisiest of the kids were away, James and I finally got a bit of a date! (with mighty Max in tow) 5 months in between those rare things just doesn't cut it. We went and saw "Wolverine" which was a pretty good date movie, a li'l something for each. Ok... Hugh Jackman for me, fighting and blood for him. Dinner at TGI Friday's at 10:00 seemed like such a radical idea, dinner that late when you're parents is unheard of! But it was so much fun.

James is on call through this coming week, in addition to covering for another man at work who's wife (finally!) had her baby this weekend, so the chances of seeing James will be slim. And Father's Day is at the end of that busy-ness for him, so we moved it to today to celebrate James. (Every holiday this year, he has wound up on rotation for on-call, what's up with that!?) He got some new gear to help with his golf interest- I dare call it a hobby because he barely has time to entertain it. But hopefully he can more often.

It's hard to enjoy good family time like this weekend when Monday is looming over like the Ghost of Christmas Future next in line to harsh this happy mellow! Can't we wake up like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and get to do it all again?

Sum-yummers

I love summer! I love the farmer's markets! I love my bloomin' garden.

I made a tasty-ness this week that my kids loved, just wanted to share.

3 Cups Broccoli coleslaw (I got it at Trader Joe's)
2 tblsp safflower or olive oil mayonnaise
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
4 tblsp orange juice
1/2 cup craisens
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 fresh ground pepper
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Put in the fridge to chill and let the craisens flavor the coleslaw.

Another my kids love during the summer, they call "Purple Salad"

1 large beet, peeled, then grated in a bowl
2 fuji or gala apples grated (do not peel)
1 large carrot grated (peeling is optional)
1 small lemon squeezed for juice
1/2 cup raisens
1/4 cup natural sugar cane

*chill for 10 minutes for sugar to make the fruit get juicy and yummy.

And our staple in the fridge all summer long: Watermelon Lemonade!
Slice up seedless watermelon, and put it in a blender. Add 1 part water to 3 part watermelon. Sugar to taste, and 1 squeezed lemon per gallon of juice.

Out of the blue

Max is such a peculiar little character. He is such an easy going baby, easy to entertain and easy to figure out what he wants. Lately, to get my attention, he just starts off with yelling, no building up to it for him! Must be from watching the bigger kids yell all day long?!

He enjoyed a paci right away when he was born, and it was something I encorporated into his routine because I am a big fan of the 'mute button' as I call them! But at 5 weeks he decided he didn't want anything to do with them, or an occassional bottle. He didn't resort to sucking his thumb either, he would just go to sleep happily, and easily. I felt so lucky! (except for the whole 'won't take a bottle, can't leave him with daddy for a bit' part of it.)

But he got a hold of a paci that I put aside to put in a keepsake box for him, as I did for Maren and Kellan with things like their first paci, baby socks, etc. Tiny things I love about their newborn memories. He chomped on it and enjoyed it. So I attatched another paci to the end of a paci keeper (his favorite item to play with) and he was a happy camper chewing and pulling on it in car rides.

Yesterday he figured out how to put it in his mouth properly, and sucked right onto it. He is HOOKED now. Everytime it fell out of his mouth, his body would go rigid, his hands would shake, and he would yell so loud out of panic! Ok, ok buddy~ here ya go! So I tried yet again to see if he'll take a bottle (as I've done many many many times for weeks...) and he took right to it.

Wahoo! He finally takes a bottle, at 8 months old! Now I can go see Phantom of the Opera the end of the month with no worries about my nursing baby!

Hey ya good lookin' what cha got cookin'

I've made Wednesdays my cooking days lately- except the whole month of May when I barely poured bowls of cereal. I'm so grateful that Maren is Ms. Independent and insists on doing that herself these days, I get a few more minutes in bed!

So today I'm cooking up a TON of chicken! My garage is slowly becoming a mini general store, we've got tons of water storage, some food that we need to replenish again to be called a 'food storage' and now freezer storage.

On the burners today:

Shredded BBQ Pinapple chicken (for pita's or pizza's)
Wheat Free/Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets
Honey Lime Garlic Chicken
Chicken Divan
Fajita Chicken
Grilled Chicken Breasts sliced for salads
Chicken Tortilla Soup in the crockpot
Chicken Salad
And lastly Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken breasts.

9 different meals all made in about 3 hours, all that's missing is the fixin's and side dishes. But when the summer heat comes intruding in the kitchen, and I don't want to spend 15 minutes in it, I don't have to! I'll spend just a second popping something out of the freezer into the oven (or grill, or crockpot, or stovetop.) And be done with it. Whew.

I'm also making:
Cranberry lemon brown rice pudding
Strawberry Crepe rolls (wheat free/gluten free)
Peach Flax Waffles (wheat free/gluten free)
Peanut Butter Granola bars
and Orange zest oatmeal bars.

I'm trying to focus on cutting out 4 things for the month: Sugar, Wheat, Gluten, Caffeine. Except for the Honey, the menu looks great! And I use Agave lately instead anyway, lower glucose index for those diabetic conscience.

And since it's summer, tons of fresh produce all around at the farmer's markets and farm stores. That will fill up the rest of the menu easy-peasy.

A tip for others who want to cut sugar down because of calories, in baked items? Use juice in place of water and sugar in the recipe. But NOT CONCENTRATED juice, that is just pure sugar anyway! Fructose in fresh juice is much easier for the body to use because it has enzymes with it, instead of white refined sugar or even sugar cane, and less calories because the carbs break down simply.

Because I want free stuff

And because I love cloth diapers. If anyone has thought or wondered about which ones are the best choice for you to consider, or why some of us crazies bother with cloth diapers (haha) you should check out this mom's review on them. She's having a giveaway on some awesome diapers, I really want the Swaddlebee's!

James made a comment on how much cost we have spent on the stash I bought for Max, I spent about $200. He's 8 months old now and I would have spent that and THEN SOME on disposables so far, but I don't have to spend another penny if I don't want to and that's pretty cool. I've still got a while to go through of diaper changes! It's 2 minutes of laundry time to dump a bucket in the washing machine every other day, that's seriously all the 'hassle' difference I go through!

But what's more cool to me is that by now I would have put approximately 2,150 in a landfill that will take over 500 years for the plastics that disposables contain to break down. And I've still got many more months of diaper changes to go. When we 'throw away' we don't really stop to think about where 'away' actually is. I wouldn't have tossed 2,150 pooey soiled non-biodegradable diapers in my backyard for my children to play around would I? "Throwing away" is someone else's back yard. We all share the same earth. And though it's a small dent in trying to make the world a better place, it's still a dent. And everyone in SOME way or another hopefully strives to do the same in their own lives.

Future Olympian

I laugh at the bobble head action he has going on too :)

Putting the pieces together

I took Kellan to the pediatrician yesterday. 11 days with a low fever looming around 99-101 and nothing seemed to help. He has had a dry cough and diahrrea for the most part. Monday he started getting hives that came and went with the day, and started complaining about ear pain. Verdict? Mycoplasma. A.k.a. Walking Pnemonia.

They did a swab test for Mycoplasma, Mono, and Strep. The last two were negative atleast. Blood test also showed the ratio of white cells slightly higher than red indicating a bacterial, not a viral infection. So now we know what we're dealing with. It's likely he caught the strain from my recent event with pnemonia. Thankfully it didn't settle into bacterial pnemonia which is deep in the lungs. His lungs sounded clear, and the strain stayed in the bronchial instead of deeper in the lungs. The downside is that it can stay much longer... 3-4 weeks of a cough is possible. But he's up and about much more than he would be if he had what I had, which is why they call it 'walking.'

So I interrogated the Doc as to WHY she thinks Kellan keeps having one thing after another. Blood test didn't indicate an underactive immune system. But remember: Dec '08- Chicken Pox. Jan '09 Salmonella poisoning, Feb '09 Influenza/Pnemonia/Ears ruptured, Mar '09 Measles. It's likely it's been downhill since Salmonella... but she focused on the fact he's not immunized. Of course, I expected that too. "Hmm, that's probably why!" She said.

Uh... "There is more to it than vaccines, because my other two- including an infant, have not had any of this history that Kellan has had, and they are constantly around him too. Chicken Pox and Measles are fine in normal circumstances, but looking at his last few months ALL TOGETHER indicate something else going on for him besides lack of vaccines. His circumstance has NOT been normal. Vaccines wouldn't have changed whatever is going on inside him right now."

Her solution is a round of antibiotics, which we are doing. Alright. But that's not a long-run solution that will support Kellan getting back to normal before Salmonella poisoning. She had no answer. So a phonecall to my Naturopathic Doc friend in Utah- and he put all the pieces together including dietary reactions beginning as an infant, as to WHY Kellan, and WHY all of these illnesses. And a game plan to try for strengthening his little body back again.

I'm excited and anxious to undertake this challenge. And it can't do any harm to give this gameplan a try, but can only possibly help. I'll cross my fingers. I wish for the pretty penny that 'healthcare' professionals charge, they would be more skilled in whole body health, not just illness maintenance. Not everyone has a Naturopathic friend to call up, but people might be healthier if they got better advice when they were sick!

Not practical, but it's temporarily functional

I remember reading a book in Elementary school... I have no idea the name of the book, or really what the plot was. But there was a girl who was quirky and different than the rest of the kids. Her parents didn't own a t.v. Or couches for that matter. They had matresses in their living room, and she talked about how much fun it was to have family time sprawled out on matresses playing games and singing songs. When I was little I thought that would be awesome, and I think I might have even tried to convince my mom to ditch the couches.

I since changed my mind as an adult who loves furniture and home decor as much as just about anything. Well, we have an arm chair which matches our sofa, both of which are quickly becoming pieces of crap! James is, well... a big dude. And he doesn't just sit nicely. He PLOPS, then swings one leg over the arm of the chair, and gets fully relaxed in an awkward position. This sideways sitting has stretched the frame of the chair apart, and staples were poking out where they should have been secured to the front frame of the chair. The cushion is beyond flattened, re-padded, and flattened again. It is horrid. There was no point to get new cushions made when it was beyond repair in and of itself. Bu-bye chair-that-was-supposed-to-be-mine but was taken over by Sir Smelly.

But what is in it's place right now? No, not a super nice massage chair recliner that we ultimately set our goal to get. No, not another arm chair, or a loveseat. Nothing was for that matter. I insisted the smelly hazardous chair be removed RIGHT NOW , it could NOT wait for a replacement.

So I got to thinking... Yes, James would sleep better, and he is preferring to sleep, in a recliner. He is snoring much more these days, and consequently I get about 3-4 hours of broken sleep every night. And the baby STILL does not sleep through the night... not hard to figure out why. So I insisted James be removed too...

No. Not really. But this is what is filling the space in my living room until we can get a recliner for James to be sleeping in.

Yes, I have a twin size bed in my living room. TACKY. But more functional for the need at the moment. I now have a king sized bed all to myself. I totally understand why old people sleep in separate rooms! But I was not going to wait until I was old to finally get decent rest and quit being run-down! Plus James will be resting much better without me punching him to get him to wake up and change positions every 20 minutes of the night!

Anyone have a recliner they would love to throw our way?! :)