Elijah's 3rd Birthday!

Lilypie Third Birthday tickers

Rachel's 4th Birthday

Lilypie Third Birthday tickers

Jeremiah's 6th Birthday!!

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Our 8th Anniversary!!!

Daisypath Anniversary tickers

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Rachel is 10 months!

This has been one eventful month for Rachel! Her two front teeth have poked through, she's been crawling everywhere and gets into trouble, bangs her toys together, gives high-fives, lets us know when she doesn't want something, swallowed an Ace bandage clip (and subsequently threw it up), caught the stomach flu, and had a bladder infection (to name a few). But we're all still smiling!

















Jeremiah dislocated his elbow (nursemaid's elbow) earlier in the month. We didn't know what was wrong with it but he was indicating to us that his wrist hurt. This was during the holiday weekend so we had to wait to see the pediatrician and it didn't seem bad enough to warrant a daylong trip to the emergency room. We wrapped it in an ACE bandage to help keep it protected and he seemed to be comforted by it being there. Well, when Elizabeth was making the phone call to the pediatrician to schedule his appointment apparently one of the clips that holds the bandage on fell off and Rachel ate it. She started screaming and crying immediately. Elizabeth went back into the room, picked her up to see what was wrong, and noticed that she started retching with some blood. Elizabeth turned her face down so she wouldn't choke and when she retched a second time out came the clip with a minor amount of blood. She decided that she was going to the pediatrician right away anyway, so while she was there for JP she had them check out Rachel too to ensure that there was no damage done. Thankfully the PA on duty was able to properly diagnose Jeremiah's dislocation and reinsert his elbow. She also determined that Rachel sustained very minor injury from the clip and to only bring her back if she threw up more blood.
Even with all that, the BIG adventure this month was our vacation to Breckenridge. Grammy Linda donated some of her timeshare points to us and got us a weekend at the Hyatt. The rooms are amazing. We had a two bedroom with full kitchen, dining area, fireplace, and in-room laundry. Anyway, Rachel had been acting fussy starting the day before leaving and we had chalked it up to teething (her teeth were nearly out at this point). However, during the second day she took a turn for the worse and we could tell that her temperature had climbed high. While we were trying to figure out what to do she decided to emphasize to us her discomfort and threw up all over Paul. Luckily he got her to the kitchen sink in time and most of it went down the drain. At this point we decided to check her temperature and realized that we had forgotten the thermometer at home. Paul rushed to the nearest Safeway (30 minutes away) and bought a thermometer 15 minutes before closing. While Paul was at the store Rachel threw up again, this time all over Elizabeth and the carpet. When Paul returned with the thermometer it measured 103.1F. We immediately stripped her out of her cloths and started to cool her off. Half an hour later her temperature was 99F, much better. We were able to control it with Tylenol. This was about 1AM. She slept through the rest of the night and woke up with her brother around 6AM very hungry. We fed her just a little bit of milk at a time hoping not to upset her stomach. However, two hours later she threw everything up again and we knew it was time to go home and call our Pediatrician.

The pediatrician checked her out and determined this was not a complication from her earlier swallowing and regurgitating the ACE bandage clip, not an ear infection, nor Roseola. He guessed it was either a stomach flu or bladder infection. He said to bring her back if she didn't have a loose stool within 24 hours. The next day Elizabeth had a prenatal appointment in the building next to the pediatrician. By the time her appointment was over it had been 24 hours and no loose stool. So we went back to the pediatrician and he had her urine checked for bacteria. He did not see bacteria but did note an increased number of white blood cells, which is a sign of infection. He sent the urine sample to a lab and prescribed Rachel an antibiotic medication. He said, "If it's the stomach flu then the antibiotic will do no harm, but if it is a bladder infection we'll get a head start on it by giving her the antibiotic now." So that's what we did. The lab results came back with a positive culture, confirming that there was some infection.

*Special note to moms with little ones: They now make ACE bandages that Velcro closed instead of using clips*

We're hoping for fewer trips to the pediatrician next month!

1 special thoughts:

Neabear said...

Good grief!! What a month for you guys! I don't recall having that much stuff going on that close together with my kids. But then my kids are 3 years apart and that could make a difference. One thing that did happen is both got the chicken pox at the same time since they were exposed by the same person on the same day. I guess it was good to get it over with all at once. I hope things have calmed down since. LOL!

The pictures of Rachel are so cute!