We seemed to be spending a lot of time at the doctor! We had Holden's well-check, followed by his ENT follow-up where the tubes looked good. Less than two weeks after that he developed a fever and a few days later I decided to take him in. I thought they might just tell me I'm overeacting to bad teething or a slight cold. To my surprise, I spent the entire morning running tests with him.
When they tested his white blood cell count, it came back at 16. So they swabbed for flu and strep. Both came back negative. So, I had to sit there and watch three of them pin him down and give him a catheter to see if he had a UTI. (extremely unpleasant.) When that came back negative, they sent me into town to have chest x-rays done to see if it was pneumonia. Again, nothing. So, they were concerned because the normal range is 5-10 and 19 is considered extremely alarming. So, for Jesse's birthday, he had a sick child to care for...Happy Birthday! Over the weekend it became apparent that it was some sort of stomach and/or GI virus because he was going to the bathroom so much and throwing up. It was so pitiful. He just hung out in this big shirt, in case he got sick...it was easy to remove.
That weekend he took it easy at home while I took Fletcher to the local fair. By Monday he was doing much better when I had to take him back for a follow-up. His level had dropped from 16 to 8.5, so he was within in the normal range again. Yay! Then I got sick. This was Holy Week, so we were busy with Easter and the start of birthday party after birthday party weekends.
The week after Easter, I took Holden in for an echocardiogram because of frequent purple lips and limbs with no rhyme or apparent reason. Thankfully everything looks fine, but he was referred to a pediatric cardiologist anyway. We have yet to get there. He was supposed to be referred for further allergy testing, but I'm not sure that was done and will check on that the next time we go in. I've been taking pictures of his purple skin (which isn't showing up that way in the pics) and his rashes, which they say are either eczema flaring up or some allergy that's didn't show up when they initally tested him.
We went to the hospital to visit our little friend, August, who had some similar symptoms to Holden. However, instead of testing for a UTI with her right away, they stopped after the swabs and told her mom to come back the next morning if things didn't get better and they'd check for a UTI. Well, that afternoon, she spiked a fever over 106F and they took her to the ER, where she seized, was given a spinal tap, was almost med-evaced out of there, and in the end...they believe it was a UTI (caused from the beach) that spread to the rest of her body. She was in the hospital for a few nights. It was touch and go initially and her poor mom had a three-year-old to worry about as well and her husband was out in the field! It was very sad and stressful! But, a week later...You wouldn't have even known anything was wrong with her! God is good!
Holden and I visited her at the hospital, but we stayed out by the nurse's station instead of going into her room.
It's simple signs like this that remind me of where we live and what goes around the world that many tend to forget.
I got caught up trying to fix some things around the house...like this umbrella. Massive, annoying project of replacing a piece of the frame, a rivet, and the wire holding it all together. As of now, it still works, so hopefully it will still last. (You'll see that it even held up with the wind caught it in the bottom picture.) Jesse continued to work on replacing our rock border with mulch and taking care of the trees. He also went out of town a couple times.
Fletcher had his three year well-check and his first trip to the dentist. We said goodbye to our photographer and our pastor as they moved away. We also had two professional photo sessions and the consignment sale took place. Oh! In addition to all of that...I finally joined a gym. But then Holden got so sick and then I got so sick, that attendance was rather poor. I try to get there regularly, but I'm reminding myself to not beat myself up for not making it some days. I want to do it all, but just have to pick and choose at times. This is also the first time Holden has been in a daycare setting of any type. So, of course...the first day at the gym, I was taking his picture in the play center!
It took a couple weeks for him to get used to me leaving him, but before long, he was comfortable enough to try and give them all a table dance! (He climbs on anything these day!)
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