Word of the Day : Mastitis

Thursday night, Landry went a 6 hour stretch without feeding. Normally when I hit this milestone as with the boys, I'm doing a happy dance and singing Hallelujah Jesus! like I'm in the church choir because this mama loves her sleep. Well, not so much this time. My breasts were engorged so I nursed Landry and put her back down to sleep.

When I went back to bed, I started uncontrollably shaking for over an hour. Sweatshirt, t-shirt, pajama pants on with two blankets on shivering like it was 20 degrees in my room. Now looking back, it's apparent that I was running a fever but I didn't know at the time. After shaking and being tense for that hour, my back and head were starting to hurt. I woke Justin up and told him something was up and what was going on.

He got me a hydrocodone that I had left over after delivery. After a little bit, I fell asleep and he went to work because I was fine. I woke up at 8 a.m to feed Landry again, with no problems. I still wasn't feeling great so I went back to sleep again with Landry next to me in bed. When I woke up at 11, my back was hurting so before I could take another pain pill, I knew I needed to eat something or I would be dizzy.

Too late.

As I was pouring my cereal, I had to catch myself on the kitchen counter because I felt like I was going to pass out. I was home by myself with the baby, so I ran to the bedroom so that in case anything happened to me that I was next to her and not in the other room. I called Justin immediately and told him he needed to come home because something was really wrong and was crying. As I'm talking to him the pain in my back goes through the roof and feels like someone is stabbing me and twisting a knife in my back and I'm screaming on the phone. He asks if he should call 911, but I told him that I couldn't let them in the door even if they came. Unfortunately, Justin's work is a good 30-40 minutes away. He hurries home.

I called my sister to make sure that I'm talking to someone in case something happens to me and I'm screaming like a total lunatic because of the pain. I can't tell you how scary it was being by myself with her and being unable to take care of her. I'm sure that she felt so helpless, she was almost an hour from me and her phone was about to die.

When I called to check where Justin is, he's still a good 15-20 minutes away and I told him I didn't think I could make it. So he calls 911 whether I wanted him to or not.

Meanwhile, I was supposed to feed Landry right when I woke up but the pain was so intense that I couldn't. I knew as soon as 911 got there, they were going to want to take me in so I'm cried on the bed in pain trying to nurse Landry while lying down. I swear four minutes later, they're knocking on my door. I didn't want them to kick in the door so I'm literally trying to do a walk/crawl to the door and screaming, "I'm coming!"

When the EMT and firemen got to the house, I told them there's a newborn baby in my room and one of the firemen goes to get her and all these big, tough firemen and EMT men are oohing and aahing over my baby girl. It was priceless, but can you blame them? She has a way of making grown men turn into mush.

Exhibit A:

Moving on...

At this point we're all thinking that it's some epidural complication b/c of the severe back pain and the migraine (never had a migraine before but I'm pretty darn sure that was one). Justin comes home and has Landry.

So they take me in by ambulance because I'm in a fetal position in a chair right by our front door. And all the while I'm thinking, "OMG, how much is all of this going to cost us?"

When we get to the ER near 12:30, my temp is only 99.5. After I show him where the back pain is, he says that it's not because of an epidural because that's not even where I get an epidural. They run some tests and get my pain under control and the doctor looks at my breasts and says that it's mastitis. Meanwhile, now it's nearly 1:00 and I was supposed to feed Landry at 11:00. So there went another 6 hour stretch that Landry went without eating. I'm pretty much knocked out on the hospital bed and Justin maneuvering her on the bed to nurse on me.

The blood work came back that I had a slight infection but the doctor said I should feel a lot better in a day after being on antibiotics and make sure that I feed, feed, feed Landry but we were free to go. The nurse came to do one last check on my vitals. Everything looked good but my temp was 103.1! The nurse wasn't sure if the doctor would let me go but he said yes, I just needed to get it the antibiotic filled and in my system.

We had friends helping with the boys so we needed to get home to them and plus I had a crazy old lady next to me cursing at the doctors and hitting nurses so I wanted OUT OF THERE!

At 5:00 pm, we filled the prescription immediately and headed home after picking up some much needed food. I hadn't eaten all day! Once I had the hydrocodone in me I felt much better.

The next 48 hours, included fevers 103, 104 and even once 105. As soon as I'd take the hydrocodone, I'd be fine but as soon as it wore off, it would spike right back up. I called my OBGYN on-call doctor since it was the weekend and she said to alternate between ibuprofen and the hydrocodone. I took Advil and it did absolutely nothing so then I went back to the hydrocodone but taking two instead of one and that seemed to do the trick but I had to take it every four hours. I had to use a warm compress before every feeding, feed her for 45 minutes to an hour to make sure she emptied the breast, then put a cabbage leaf (to help with the inflammation), and then start the whole thing over again because it was time to feed her again. It was seriously the worse.weekend.ever.

Finally, it was Monday and I didn't feel any better and then was beginning to see a rash on my right breast. I called my OB and they fit me in. Of course they confirmed that it was mastitis. My two options were to go to the hospital to get IV antibiotics or get a rocephin shot, a high powered antibiotic shot. I chose the shot of course not wanting to bring Landry to a hospital if I could prevent it. She couldn't believe they let me walk out of the ER with a fever, much less 103!

The nurse gave me the shot and warned me it would really hurt and sting. NO KIDDING! I could hardly walk out of that office. I went home immediately and got on a heating pad because it hurt so bad but late that night I felt slight relief. Since that shot, I haven't run a fever. I now feel like an absolutely new person. Besides an epidural, it was the most painful shot I've ever gotten (believe me, I've had a lot of shots the last 10 months of my life) but it was worth the pain!

Right when all this hit, it also affected my milk supply. So now I'm trying to get my milk supply up. I'm the look out for fenugreek, eating oatmeal and drinking lots of water. If you have any other successes getting your milk up, please share.

That was a really expensive stretch of sleep I got from Miss Landry!

So I'm really behind on photos! Sorry! I'll try to catch up! And since I have a ton of pictures to catch you up on before all this went down, here are some of my recent favorites and me and my sweet girl.

She makes me forget all about this painful week. Again, another hardship in our lives but another thing checked off our "worth it" list.

Shiners and fevers

You know us, we do so well with traveling (insert sarcasm here). This past weekend we went to Camp Arrowhead for a church retreat. We were so excited to see a playground  when we pulled up and knew that would definitely keep the kids occupied for the weekend. That is until it was decided that we should have a monsoon all weekend long. I can't remember the last night it rained that long consistently. Guess it was bound to happen with all the beautiful weather we've had. Our nursery workers had to entertain all our kids in one room pretty much the entire weekend. Don't you feel for them? The boys thought it was so fun to have bunk beds and loved "camping."

Nolan is ridiculously ticklish. I mean I can't even give him a bath before he's hystercially laughing thinking I'm tickling him. Even worse, he has NO control over his body when he's being tickled...I'm talking completely body flailing spasms people. So an innocent tickling match landed him meeting a chair, and he got his first real shiner. The chair definitely won. It was nasty looking on Saturday and swollen, but this kid has some super healing powers and now it just looks like a scratch. So in the last couple of months, he's stabbed himself with skewers in his gums, stabbed an inch from his eye (skewers again), ran into a friend at school and got a gray bruised tooth, and now his first shiner. He's falling right in his daddy's footsteps who had three sets of stitches before he was 2.

Campbell was being pretty fussy off and on all weekend but we just attributed it to being out of his element. Saturday night, Justin slept with Nolan in the bunk bed and I had Campbell with me in the double bed. We both woke up feeling like we had been in a car wreck. Nolan has such horrible eczema on his ankles this time of year and he rubs his ankles together like he's a cricket all night long with a few kicks to Justin every so often. Campbell was pre-fever and just not sleeping so when I woke up the next morning it was one of those mornings where it felt like you slept 5 minutes.

He ended up running 101-102 for the rest of Sunday. I took off on Monday fully prepared to take him to the doctor. To my astonishment, he was fever free all Monday! That has NEVER happened. It's usually something crazy like swine flu or pneumonia when he shows any type of symptoms. For the first time ever he actually just got better on his own! Maybe we're growing up and finally building up a better immune system...one can only hope.

The travel gods

Yes they have it out for us....those darn travel gods. Either that or someone has a travel voodoo curse out on us. I'm just sure of it.

If you're not convinced, here's a few to persuade you:

1. Bandit running away when we went to Europe (Summer 2004)

2. Bandit running away when we took him to Kentucky (Dec. 2004)

3. Running into ice on our first road trip to Kentucky...took 3 days instead of 2 and missed Christmas Eve with the family (Dec. 2004)

4. Missed our flight cut off time at the curb side check-in by 5 minutes and they wouldn't let us check in even though the flight hadn't left (and we waited over an hour) and stuck in the airport with a 15 mo. old (Nolan) for 12 hours (Dec. 2006)

5. Flight canceled coming back from Folly Beach, SC and had to stay an extra night and leave at 4 a.m. and missed a day of mandatory training for my work.

And, that's just a few...not all of them!  This year, we had the bags packed, ate a leisurely breakfast - it was wonderful! Campbell wouldn't touch his banana which he usually eats in .95 seconds on any other normal day. Then he wouldn't stop drinking his milk...I means two cups of milk. That should have been my first clue but I was just in my 'let's make sure we catch the plane' mode so I just gave him a huge bowl of blueberries. Our neighbor graciously drove us to the airport in our van so we wouldn't have to worry about parking, etc. We left three hours early (lesson learned from Christmas 2006). We're about 3/4 of the way there when Campbell spits up a little bit...weird since he's outgrown that stage, but no big deal. Well, moments later it's followed by a huge finale of breakfast...blueberries and all! We pull into the closest gas station and strip him in the parking lot.

Pop Quiz: Who are you feeling most sorry for now? 

A. Me as I'm the one cleaning down the screaming toddler in the filthy bathroom with no soap or paper towels after carrying him in the freezing cold to the bathroom in just his diaper.

B. Justin as he's the one trying to hose down the car seat in the gas station parking lot only to find out that the hose is frozen and has to walk down to a tire and lube station to use their hose while it splatters all over his shoes and pants.

C. Our neighbor who is completely second-guessing his choice to be neighborly and give us a "quick" ride to the airport?

D. All of the above

If you answered "D"...all of the above, you passed the quiz. Thank goodness we had a suitcase full of spare clothes and changed him in a jiffy. Since the car seat was soaked and had seen better days we had to get the airport fast but couldn't put him back in the drenched seat. So Justin drove super cautiously as I buckled both of us in...it's not like we carry a spare car seat! It was only about a 5-10 minute drive but a very nervous and windy one since the windows were down.

Thankfully that was the most eventful thing that happened. I think I might have prayed, "Please God don't let him throw up on the plane," at least 50 times before we boarded. Apparently, it worked! Every gurgle and cough made me a nervous wreck though. When we arrived, we definitely gave everyone a hug from a distance.

I feel just awful that our neighbor had to endure not only that but then DRIVE our car home! He was so nice and he's a marine and said that he's seen worse but I'm not so sure...

I'm sick of sick days!

So guess who stayed home today...my wonderfully amazing dad with both my boys. He did so great with them and they loved it. I'm so thankful because I'm already really dipping into my sick days and it's only the second 6 weeks! I decided 10 sick days is not enough for a teacher (who is exposed to every sickness known to man at school) and especially when I have two children of my own (in daycare at that!).

Nolan spiked a slight fever last night but all was good today. Sure enough, at 6:30, another fever at 101.5. Looks like I'm staying home tomorrow. Seriously, can someone just throw me a bone here?

Bleach bums

Update on Campbell...actually make that both boys. You guessed it, now they're both sick. Daycare called yesterday and said Nolan was running 100.4; barely a fever. So I pull up to daycare and the owner is covered in bleach spots and my poor 4 yr old is holding everything in his hands from his cubby including his pillow and blanket to take home. I mean I can't blame them and of course I want to wash them but I think he probably thought he was part of the haz-mat that needed to go.

I took him in to our most popular hangout, Carenow, where they know me by name. He has tonsillitis. I'm just glad that strep and flu test came back negative on him. How sad is it that I'm glad it's only tonsillitis? So both boys stayed home with Justin today. Campbell is going to stay home one more day with my dad (hopefully) but Nolan is going back tomorrow. Cam has been fever free for almost 72 hrs. Nolan has been fever free for 24 hrs. Even then, it was a very mild fever (99) by the time I picked him up from daycare.

Dear Santa,

I know it's a little early in the year, but all I want is a Clorox cleaning crew to scrub my entire house with toothbrushes and bleach.

Yours truly,
Andrea

P.S. Can you please come and take care of my husband when he gets sick. He'll definitely be next. This photo was taken the day before Campbell tested positive for flu and strep.

Streptease

Oh boy, my boys go all out when they decide to get sick. Here's how they plan it. Let's wait until mom is out of town on her last "me" trip before full time motherhood this summer and get really sick. Campbell decided to go first on this little stunt on Friday and he went full throttle...ear infection, strep, 103 fevers, runny nose, coughs. Nolan decided to come in on Round 2 on Sunday. You guessed it...strep and a very suspicious rash that looks like red dots on his face and arms. Hmmm, what ever could it be? Chicken pox, anyone? I made it home on Sunday after being worried sick and feeling terribly guilty. We went to our regular dive - Carenow. We should buy stock in that place. Is it listed on NYSE? Not sure about the chicken pox. We're still on "watch" but dots keep going away but then another one comes up but no itching so we don't think it is...stay tuned.

So the past few nights have been reminders of the newborn days with the crankiness and sleeplessness. If there's a silver lining in all this it's that I'm off work and don't have to worry about sick days. We've been a fever free household for 48 hours and decided to venture to VBS tonight only to discover Campbell had a low grade fever tonight once we got there. Oh what a start to a "relaxing" summer. At first I was going to nominate Justin for "Dad of the Year" dealing with all that by himself but now I'm thinking if they got THAT sick on his watch, maybe not so much. Maybe it's all part of their evil plan to never leave them with Dad alone again. Hey at least I have job security.

Pneumonia weekend

Many of you asked how Campbell is doing with his pneumonia. Let me tell you that he is one feisty guy when it comes to taking medicine. Nolan takes meds like it's a slurpee or something he found out of an Easter egg. Campbell on the other hand...it's like a version of WWF smackdown or wrestling an alligator. We don't dare give him medicine when there's only one parent home. In fact, we've thought about bringing Nolan in on the act to hold him down. Now they have flavoring that you can get put in your kid's medicine to "help the medicine go down." Why I didn't get this put in it is something I'm still asking myself. So we just took our last day of antibiotics and the steroid. HALLELUJAH!

You know the video of him giggling? Yea, not so much these past 5 days. He's been one mean little boogar. I won't hold it against too much though because he's so cute.

We had to cancel going to our church retreat this weekend but I think by Sunday we were all a little stir crazy and Campbell was doing a lot better so we decided to venture out to Main Street Arts Festival. It was fun even though we had to look at the art as we raced by to keep the boys happy in the stroller and it was close to dinner time so we were trying to prevent meltdowns. We had dinner at Mi Cocina. That waiter must have hated us. You should have seen the floor when we left. It was a pretty tense dinner. The music was so fast paced. I already feel like I don't have time to chew my food but this was just crazy. The music made me feel like I was part of Amazing Race: food edition. When we left Justin noticed I had dried mango on my face in a couple of places. We've never felt so uncool. How did we get through it? Just like we always do - laugh.

Someone please throw me a bone

Right now, I'm evaluating last weeks events and wondering how life got so crazy. Justin just found out that one of his skin spots that he had removed had some pre-cancerous spots and they needed to go back in and dig some more out. Fortunately, they got it all this time but he's on baths for the next two weeks and had a bandage the size of a pillow on his back for a few days. Can I tell you how funny it is to see a 6'4" man in a bath tub? I've had to help care for his back bandage. The sight of stitches just makes my heart race. I was expecting to see something that resembles Frankenstein when I pulled the bandage off but luckily it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Throw in that along with Justin going to the dentist for the first time and finding out that some bad news in the cavity department that just might make Nestle, Reese's and Willy Wonka laugh all the way to the bank. Oh, let's not forget my recent trip to Carenow for myself. I would tell you why but then I might die of embarassment. So let's just say that in the last year, my body has been poked and prodded by doctors way too many times in places that no one wants to be poked and prodded.

Throw all that in and the fact that Campbell has pneumonia, and I'm less than two weeks away from two TAKS tests and this week is one for the record books for crazy drama. I keep telling myself that I'm not trying to outdo the last drama (which there always is one) but it just happens! I took Campbell to Carenow last night. They are really getting to know us there and Web Check-in is the BEST invention EVER! I'm wondering why I'm waiting for over two hours for my pediatrician when Carenow can just call me and I have my own room within 10 min. Someone heard my plea!

I'm staying home today even though I have ZERO sick days because of maternity leave. I gave Cam his antibiotic this morning and a steroid for his lungs. Guess where it was 30 seconds after I gave it to him...all over me. If my saying is true that you're not a parent until you've been vomited on then I guess that makes me a parent 4 times over in the past month alone. He's FINALLY sleeping but sounds like he's smoked a pack of cigarettes. It breaks my heart. I'm determined for us all to get healthy but until then someone throw me a bone!

Dad of the Year

My husband is officially the sweetest man and best dad ever. I, on the other hand, feel like the worst mother ever. Last night, Campbell started fussing about 3:00 a.m from what I'm sure was his tummy issues. So since I had been thrown up on 3 times the night prior, I asked Justin if he would take a turn last night so I could get some more sleep.

Apparently, the diaper disaster was beyond any disaster we've ever experienced between our two boys and all over Cam and his crib. Justin calls for backup over the monitor talking directly into it so that I'll hear downstairs and come to his rescue, right? He called for me 4-5 times and even whistled over the stairs. This is my response....zzzzzzzz. I was completely out...good thing we didn't get robbed or anything. He had to give Cam a bath at 3:00 a.m. and then go take a shower himself! After he gets out, Campbell starts fussing again and by then I think Justin had his fill of Campbell for a while and makes sure that I wake up to go take a turn at 4:30. I felt so horrible. I think of myself as somewhat of a light sleeper but I guess this week of sleepless rest with a sick baby and going back to work after Spring Break finally caught up to me. Justin was a lot more understanding than I would have been. Most men would have walked into that room and walked right out. Justin is definitely a keeper.

Tummy troubles

Just when I think that things are getting easier, one of the boys throw a doozie at me. And when I say doozie I mean the tummy bug and everything that goes along with that. Last night Campbell was really going to town at dinner...yogurt, sweet potatoes, mandarin oranges and of course puffs and yogurt melts. Well I was getting ready to take him upstairs for a bath when he decided that it was so yummy that he wanted to show it to me again. It was a huge mess and all OVER me. You're not really a parent until you've been vomited on. So I guess last night I became a parent three times throughout the course of the night. I made the mistake of giving him a bottle shortly thereafter. Note to new parents (or not very smart parents like me last night): Don't give a baby a bottle shortly after they just threw up. You'll never guess what will happen.

The poor guy couldn't keep anything down-not even Pedialyte. So Justin stayed home with the boys today since I'm out of sick days after using them all up at the beginning of the year for maternity leave. I know it was the right thing to do but on days like this I feel like the worst mom leaving him and not being able to take care of him. Justin, once again, was Mr. Mom and took care of him today with good TLC. I'm crossing my fingers for more sleep tonight.

That was embarrassing

Today was Campbell's 6 month check up. Justin went with me since we're both off work. We talked to the doctor about Campbell's wheezing and coughing that's been going on for a month now. We found out that we're at the beginning of another ear infection. Seriously, will it ever stop?

So I asked our doctor about this spot on Campbell's arm and if was a birth mark. I told her how it suddenly appeared and I scrubbed on it during bath time but it won't come off. She looked at it and said she had never seen a birth mark look like that. So she went and got an alcohol swab and guess what...this so-called birth mark was DIRT! It was left over from our ER visit last week when they drew his blood and left band-aid gunk. Another mom-of-the-year moment to add to my long list. She made me feel better by telling me that she had one mom come in scared about a red spot that suddenly appeared on her daughter's head and she kept putting Vaseline on it. Same story...our doctor used her infamous alcohol swab and turns out it was just a Slurpie splatter. Well at least there's another mom out there like me!

This has been a really busy month for Campbell. He's sitting up on his own, drinking his own bottles, he's a champ at baby food now and hasn't had one food that he's turned down yet, and he's sleeping on his tummy now at night.

6 month stats:
Weight: 18 lbs 9 oz. (60th percentile)
Height: 26 1/4 in. (50th percentile)
Head: 44.5 cm (50th percentile)

mERry christmas

We like to put the 'ER' in Merry Christmas...wouldn't be exciting if we didn't. It never fails that every year that we're up here we're either at the hospital or going to a funeral. Campbell has been really battling a yucky chest cold. We've been giving him breathing treatments left and right for almost a month now. We took him to a clinic here on Tuesday and they gave him another treatment, checked his oxygen level and it was at 100% so they sent us home to continue the nebulizing treatments. I swear when my boys outgrow needing breathing treatments we are going to have a ceremonial bonfire to torch that thing. I can't stand it!

So my otherwise ridiculously happy and smiling baby was just as fussy as could be on Christmas Eve and Christmas. We kept giving him Motrin but he still wasn't getting rid of his fever. I heard him let out a little cry and went to check on him and he was breathing so fast so I counted and he was taking 54 breaths per minute and his stomach was really distended every time he took a breath. We took his temp and Justin pulled it out from under his arm after it jumped to 102 within seconds. We call the nurse back in TX and they said we needed to have him checked out. We head to the ER on Christmas night at 11:00, they get us right in. They immediately take his temp...it's 104.7! I start tearing up. Fevers make me panic. I know it's a normal body response to an illness but they make me so nervous.

They load him with Tylenol to get his fever down. Next came chest x-rays, another breathing treatment along with some serious whacks to his back to get him to break up the mucous, nasal swap to test for RSV, and the blood work. There were four nurses holding him down trying to draw his blood. He and I were both crying. At about 2:30 a.m. all tests came back normal. No pneumonia, no RSV...just a really nasty upper respiratory infection. AND after all that, they said all we could do was just keep doing what we're doing...breathing treatments...AGH! So much for that bonfire anytime soon.

So it's not exactly an ideal first Christmas for our sweet little guy but I'm so thankful everything is OK with him.