Bittersweet

Littlest had another scheduled visit to the Purple Chipmunk Desk at the Children’s Hospital. This time they did a swallowing study to re-evaluate her reflux and see how she tolerates thin liquids. There was some concern about her lungs because of her big respiratory illness at the end of June and her chronic cough. Althought we already know her cough is probably a symptom of her reflux. Anyhow, poor Littlest couldn’t eat for three hours before the test. She was starving and was mad when I tried to give her the binkie. I think she would have thrown it across the room if she could have. I finally fed her just a tiny bit and then we were finally called. They do the study using a fluoroscope which provides real-time moving images of her swallowing. We alll donned lead vests to protect us and then sat Littlest in a padded infant seat and we strapped her in. We first tried a thickeness consist with regular milk and watched her swallow it. They include a constrast agent in the fluid so they can watch it go down her throat on x-ray. On the screen we could watch her suck first. Nancy (whose title I can’t remember) told us that Littlest still has an immature suck even after the four month structure development (going by her adjusted age of a little over 4-1/2 months). Then we watched as some of the thin liquid slip past her vocal cords and into her lungs. Apparently the vocal cords are supposed to stop the flow of liquids into the lungs. Then we tried the nectar thick liquids, which is what we are trying to use now. She did fine with that thickness. We also spoon fed her a super thick pudding type mixture, think shiny whipped mashed potatoes with a hint of banana. This was Littlest’s first experience with spoon feeding. She did pretty good, but because of her immature suck and development, we were told to hold off on any type of feeding other than formula until after she is six months old and after she’s seen by the clinic.

Strapped in and ready for food!


Not a very good picture of the fluoroscopy screen, but on the left side you can see the shape of the nippe about midway and there is just a tiny bit of contrast coming out of it. 

 
Are we done yet?

Littlest is 250 days old
Bug is 517 days old
Daddy is 15,121
Mommy is 15,773

How many days old are you?

Here’s a picture of Littlest while we were in Bend.

I haven’t been able to post for the last several days because of problems with Blog.com.  I couldn’t even do drafts.   So hopefully they now have their problems fixed and I will try to get a post up later today or tomorrow with pictures. 

We saw not one, but two of these within several hours of each other in the big town in the High Desert. 

These aren’t the Wrangler’s and Levi’s I grew up with.    

Sorry for not telling you, but we headed out of town for a long weekend.  I will post about it later with pictures.  For right now, the picture of Big Yellow Dog by the river will be a little teaser. 

“LeRoi Moore, saxophonist and founding member of Dave Matthews Band, died unexpectedly Tuesday afternoon, August 19, 2008, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles from sudden complications stemming from his June ATV accident on his farm near Charlottesville, Virginia. Moore had recently returned to his Los Angeles home to begin an intensive physical rehabilitation program.”

Thank you God for the daycare thing…

Obviously I can’t, you can, and you helped!

But your name isn’t “Kim” you say.   For a minute or two, four days a week, I become Kim.  I’m not quite sure how it happened and now I’m not sure how to fix it, so I’m Kim for an instant. 

Okay, so it’s not really fun, it was just a catchy headline.   Bug and I both have ear infections.  Bug also was diagnosed with a staph infection (but not MRSA) elsewhere on her body, so they started her on Kelfex (cephalexin) and she is to have soaks in the tub three times a day (which she absolutely loves!).   She is already getting better.   I went to the doctor last Tuesday and she said she would treat me for  “swimmer’s ear” since she could only see a tiny bit of fluid behind the drum.  Well, it got worse and worse until yesterday I couldn’t hear, couldn’t to do anything that would make any movement within three miles of my head.   I went to urgent care and  found out I had a full blown inner and outer ear infection.    Remember back when I said that Bug’s old doctor wasn’t very good at diagnosing ear infections.  I obviously don’t listen to myself (of course not, I had an ear infection and couldn’t hear!)  On top of it, I had a slight fever of 100 degrees - yup same temperature as outside.  That temperature was taken was after I had been sitting in air conditioning for several hours.   My guess is that Bug had a fever too, but it was so stinkin’ hot, who could tell other than she was super cranky.  But then again, we all were.  The picture are of the meds we’ve been given in the last week.  Only one of them is Bug’s.  The rest are mine.  We also are eating lots of live culture yogurt to combat the antibiotic side effects. 

TTFN!