One Week

What a week it has been!! For those of you wondering what happened to me this week, (OK, mainly my mom and sisters) I don't even know where to begin. Ash and I both left to go out of town last Friday on separate trips, so Landon stayed with my parents and Lucy came with me. Landon became sick Friday evening complaining of a sore throat and being tired. When I called Saturday to check on him, Mom said he was fine and was riding a bike with his cousin. It turns out, he was learning to ride a bike without training wheels (see the post below to see why I even mentioned that) Anyhow, when I returned home, Sunday afternoon, Landon was again complaining of a sore throat.

So, I called first thing Monday to make an appointment for later that afternoon. Sure enough Landon had strep and would have to miss another day of school. In addition to strep, the doctor also thought he had scabies aka mites...gross I know! The next morning (Tuesday) we woke up and I noticed Lucy felt hot, but I just figured she was hot from the heavy blanket she was sleeping with. We spent the day watching morning cartoons and having an indoor picnic and then remembered that we were scheduled to bring snacks to Landon's baseball game that night. At that point, Landon had been on antibiotics for 24 hours and was no longer contagious. So, we raced to the grocery to get enough snacks and drinks for the team, stopped by the house to put the drinks on ice, and I noticed again that Lucy was really hot. So, I took her temperature and she was burning up with a temp of 102.8. I called the doctor on the way to the ballgame with snacks in hand. Our pediatrician told us to come in first thing in the morning and to give Lucy Tylenol in the meantime. We also had the fun task of applying Landon's scabies lotion than night. This was Tuesday.

We woke up the next morning (Wednesday), got Landon off to school and called to make Lucy's appointment. Around noon, Lucy and I head to the pediatricians. They immediately did a strep test and it came back negative. (By the way, it is very uncommon for babies to get strep) They then decided to get a blood and urine sample. So they pricked my babies’ finger to get the blood and then had to use a catheter to collect a urine sample...poor Lucy! The urine sample ruled out a UTI and the blood sample came back with a white blood cell count that was "alarmingly" high. At that point, I was panicked. They then needed another blood sample from the arm. Lucy is a chunk so that proved to be a challenge. In fact, the nurse spent a good minute trying to get the needle in a vein. Lucy was hysterical at that point and threw up everywhere! I was then told that I will need to go to Children's to get the blood drawn for a blood culture. So, off we went to Children's. Lucy got the blood drawn from her little arm (on the first try) and we were told to return to the doctor’s office for a shot of antibiotics. So, back to the doctor’s office we went for a shot in her leg. We were told to make an appointment for the following day and then we were told go home. This was all on Wednesday.

Thursday rolled around and I woke up with a sore throat. Off to the doctor I went to find out I had strep...no joke! I not only woke up to a sore throat but news that the swine flu was in Birmingham! I am completely paranoid at that point that Lucy had swine flu. We went back to the pediatrician’s office that afternoon to check Lucy's blood again and to get another shot of antibiotics. Her white blood count was till very high, however it did drop slightly. I insisted on getting a flu test for her which turned out to be negative (at least I will be able to sleep that night!) However, she still had a fever near 104 and we still didn't know what was wrong with her. We were told to come back the next day to check her blood once again and to get the results from her blood culture.

Friday morning arrived and Lucy's fever had finally broken! That had to be good news. We went to the pediatricians around 3 and got the news that her cultures all came back negative and since she looks better and is no longer running a fever, it was ruled that she had some sort of virus, but NOT swine flu! So, the week ended with good news all around. We woke up this morning (Saturday) and Landon feels great, I am feeling better (and no longer contagious) and Lucy appears back to her sweet baby self! Oh yeah, and in between all of this we bought our first house this week! All's well that ends well! Sorry, for the novel above, but that is the shortest version I could come up with. Here’s to a much healthier and more enjoyable weekend!