On the road to recovery

I hope it is safe to say that my kids are on the road to recovery health wise at this point. Last week Audrey woke up in the night and literally was screaming all night long, so we took her into the dr. and she had a double ear infection and still had her croupy cough and fever at that time, last Wednesday. The Dr. put her on antibiotics and she is done with those now and seems to be doing a ton better. Well in the meantime, Adam started developing the same symptoms she had with a cough and a fever and seemed very irritable. On Saturday of last week we took him to the dr. office to get checked out because his cough had worsened and was a very wet cough and he seemed like he was having difficulty breathing at sometimes. We just wanted to make sure he did not have RSV. We discovered that he had Brochiolitis. Bronchiolitis is swelling and mucus buildup in the smallest air passages in the lungs (bronchioles), usually due to a viral infection. The Dr. started Adam on Nebulizer treatments and we put a little mask on the little guy about every 4-6 hours and give him albuterol to help the inflammation in his chest. The poor little guy is miserable! At this point we do not want to go anywhere else for the rest of the winter. He will be on these treatments at least for the next week and until his cough clears up and when he does not wheeze while breathing. All the things that have happened in the last week could have been worse, so we are grateful that we have been able to keep Adam home and not have him be hospitalized. We have been to the Dr. office so much lately and want to stay away for as long as possible, but Adam does have his six month appointment coming up at the beginning of March and his follow-up appointment with the Ears, Nose and Throat Dr. Anyways, we are on the road to recovery and hope nothing else comes our way, but when it rains, it pours right.

One thing after the other..

This past week Audrey developed a croup virus and had a fever for about 5 days, which is typical with croup. She seemed just fine, but her fever got up to 104.3 Saturday morning and made me a nervous wreck. My husband stayed calm the whole time and told me she would be fine, because when I gave her a luke warm bath to bring her fever down, she was playing with her toys and acting okay at four in the morning. I considered rushing her to the Dr. office to see what they could do for me to calm my nerve, but most likely they would have sent me along my way with a lollipop telling me that my daughter would survive. What they would have done for my daughter is what they did for us yesterday. We took Audrey in to see if she had something else besides croup, since the fever had not broke yet and was still about 103. The Dr. we saw was not her regular pediatrician, but he seemed to impress us with his explanatory medical knowledge. He wanted to make sure Audrey did not have pneumonia, so we got a chest x-ray and did an oxygen test just to make sure. The chest x-ray showed just a little bit of fluid and inflammation around her lymph nodes in the lung region, but the pediatrician said that was common with croup and it did not look like she had pneumonia. She did get a steroid shot in her leg and during the shot she kicked her leg up and bent the needle. Yeah Audrey she is like superwoman, but child size. Seriously, right before her chest X-ray the radiology tech had me sit her on a table right in front of the X-ray machine and Audrey literally used her strength and pushed me into the wall behind me. I finally got a good hold on her during the X-ray, but she somehow still weaseled her way out of my grip a couple of times. I told Sean she will be a good gymnast someday, since she has a lot of strength. The reason Audrey had to have a steroid shot was to help bring down the inflammation in her throat, so she could breathe easier and not have a chance of her airway from being blocked. Last night we gave Audrey some motrin and her fever finally broke and this morning she is catching up on some much needed sleep. She still has the croupy cough, but I am glad her fever finally broke. Anyways, Adam is getting a cough now. ..... Hopefully, it results in nothing and he is just fine.

Pictures of Adam's hive.

This is a picture of Adam a couple of days before hives.

Still my happy little boy, even though he has been miserable most of the day....
If you click on the picture it shows you it a bit closer.

We took Adam to the doctor today and he confirmed to us that he did have an antibiotic allergic reaction and said he has it bad as it gets basically. I took pictures of it, but still he looks much worse in person. Adam was put on antibiotic about a week ago, because the doctor thought it might help clear up some of the congestion that he thought he had and gave it to him as a precaution. But after going to the Ears, nose and throat doctor we discovered that the noisy breathing he was having was from his laryngomalacia, moderate sized adnoids and some acid reflux. If you are wondering what laryngomalacia is, it explains it in the post two previous ones before this one. We kept Adam on his Antibiotic because once you start one you should finish it, but in his case we discontinued use of it. I am glad that his medical problems have only been minor, but the poor little guy has still had to deal with a lot in the past couple of weeks..... The pediatrician said that his hives will clear up in about a week, so we will probably be staying home. I'm sure if we go out in public people would be thinking he is contagious, or something of the sort. I am happy to say that Adam is breathing much better at night now that we turn him on his side and now that he is taking prevacid for the acid reflux.

Hives

I woke up this morning and Adam was completely covered in hives. It was inside his ears, on his eyelids and even on his toes and among the rest of his body. It is a good thing he can not scratch himself yet, because I sure would be. I am assuming he is allergic to his antibiotic that he got put on a couple of days ago and is allergic to it like his mother and sister. Although, it has already started to disappear slightly since I took off his pajamas I am waiting to hear back from the dr. on how to help it disappear altogether.

5 months old and our cute little three year old.

Adam is now 5 months old! He now weighs in at a whopping 16lbs and is still thriving. He is such a ball of joy all the time and is starting to eat baby foods and and has become more vocal lately. He now gets mad if Audrey takes one of his toys and cry's until she gives it back, which is within a matter of seconds usually. Adam likes to hold onto toys and will even take his finger and scratch at little details. He likes to hold onto his feet and try's to eat his toes as well and has learned that by holding onto his feet it helps him turn over onto his side better. I am so glad that he is growing and learning. WE have had a few sleepless nights for the last couple of weeks with him though, because during the night he has not been breathing very well. What I mean about him not breathing well is when he sleeps during the night he tends to have little episodes where he will not breathe in and out as often as he should be doing and tends to hold his breath. He will sometimes hold it up to 20 to 30 seconds every other breath and sometimes every three to four breaths while his chest still rises up and down because he is trying to breathe in and out of his nose, but has difficulty and this will last for a few minutes sometimes, or longer and it has been happening quite frequently during the night. He has always been a very noisy breather and sounds like he is congested all the time and his breathing at night has always been a little abnormal. But just in the last week it seemed like it had worsened quite a bit, so we decided to take him to the dr. to see if he had sleep apnea. The pediatrician decided he would put Adam on an antibiotic and get him a BBG machine to see if that would help clear up his congestion and he also referred us to a ENT(ears nose and throat dr.) to see if he may be having more problems like sleep apnea and to see what is going on with his breathing. The BBG machine is a device that helps suck mucus out through the nose, but when we used this device on Adam nothing really came out. We took Adam to the ENT yesterday and found out a couple of different things about him, which is a combination that results in his problems during the night. He has a minor case of Laryngomalacia, Moderate sized adnoids, and said that Adam had some scar tissue on throat and thinks that he may have acid reflux. Also, we showed the ENT a video of Adam sleeping during the night and he said that Adam has mild sleep apnea. The ENT was able to discover all this by sticking a scoping tube down Adam's nose. It may all sound a lot worse then it really is, but the ENT gave us reassurance that he should be fine, but if his breathing at night does not resolve on its own we will probably need to remove his adnoids in the near future. He said that he would not want to remove his adnoids right now, since he is at such a young age. The ENT put Adam on prevacid to see if that will help him breathe better at night if he really does have acid reflux. He said that if the medicine does not help in a couple of weeks then he might not have it, but he said by the scar tissue on his adnoids it is very likely.

Laryngomalacia is best described as floppy tissue (epiglottis and arytenoid cartilages) above the vocal cords that falls into the airway when a child breaths in, so we think this is one of the causes of him not breathing very well at night. He does have a very minor case and the Dr. said he should grow out of it by the time he is 12 to 18 months of age. The ENT told us if we lay him on his side at night he should be able to breathe easier, because it opens Adam's airway more. He said that the worse position for him to be in at night is when he sleeps on his back, because the larynx will not open as much.

Well with the combination of the laryngomalcia, moderate sized adnoids, sleep apnea and most likely acid reflux he actually slept really well on his side last night and hardly made a peep. It is just unbelievable that is all it took! He is usually snoring, or gasping for air during his little episodes, or making some kind of noise. I still was up with him quite frequently last night, just to make sure he was still breathing because he was so quiet....... With Sleep apnea and Laryngomalacia he is at an increased risk for getting cyanosis at night(turning blue from not getting enough oxygen) but the dr. reassured us that he should be just fine. We feel like Adam should be just fine after all that has been going on.

Audrey just started preschool this last month and loves it!! We decided to put her into preschool because she was getting so bored at home. I can already tell that she has learned new skills and developed a ton from it. She has learned how to use scissors, but has not mastered cutting yet. Also, she is starting to trace letters and numbers a little bit and is still working on mastering that as well. Every time I usually pick her up she is so excited and tells me the things they have done at preschool and seems so happy about it all. Thanks, to her preschool teacher who is awesome and makes it so much fun for the kids! Thanks, Lori for referring us to the preschool we love it! Anyways, Audrey just started primary in at the beginning of January and loves to go in there and sing songs and is also the naughtiest one most of the time..... She just likes to run around, or jump up and down and not stay quiet. She is starting to be a little bit better, but I think she just has so much energy all of the time she can not contain herself. We love her though and she has made some progress in primary in the last month and just needs time to adjust to it.