Emergency Room visits are never fun

What a day, er, night I guess.

Looking back, everything turned out just fine, but we had a few hurdles to get to this point...and it all started with a little cough.

As a mother, I've found that I can deal pretty well with stomach flu, daily cuts and abrasions that come with boys playing, and other similar things.  But, I've also found that I experience my greatest stresses with respiratory illnesses.  When these little guys struggle breathing is when I really get nervous.  I will never forget the three nights in a row that I sat up with D as he struggled with Croup.  So many prayers offered from my mother's heart in his behalf.  I've truly learned the power of prayer--especially when given in behalf of someone you love.  Well, Monday was not like those nights.  But there was that little cough.  And in addition to the cough, our littlest had been incredibly irritable all day!  The Big Guy Lowe and I had fun things planned for our family, because we were getting ready to leave for Maui the next day, and Grammy HB would be watching the boys while we were away.  After finishing all our fun activities, we arrived back home.  The Big Guy Lowe asked if J felt warm to me.  I didn't think he did, but with how grumpy he had been we decided to give him some Ibuprofin.  It was about that time that we took off our little guy's shirt and grew concerned.  Something just looked wrong.

At closer observation, we recognized that as he was breathing, his tummy would balloon out and his sternum area would plunge pretty deep into his chest.  It was when I saw this that I asked for the phone.  I immediately called our pediatrician's office and to my great relief they were still open--it was about 6:55PM.  After explaining to the nurse what I was observing in our son, she calmly asked a few more questions and then instructed us to take our son to the Emergency Room as he was showing the beginning signs of respiratory distress and he needed to be evaluated and treated.  Tears immediately came to my eyes as I realized that what I was trying to push away as "mother fears" were indeed worthy of concern.  I hate it when that happens.  Calls were quickly made to Grammy HB and I headed to the hospital with J as The Big Guy Lowe waited for Grammy to arrive before joining us in the ER.

It's amazing how fast you can be seen in the ER when you have a 2 year old that is having problems with his breathing--that's how it should be.  It is also a good thing that our hospital has a Pediatric ER completely seperate from the general ER.  Before we knew it we were back in our room and The Big Guy Lowe was with us.  Now came all the doctors, x-rays, treatments and waiting.

We were all pretty scared at first.

It seems that our little guy did have a fever of 101 degrees, not out of control, but still a fever.  We had many doctors, nurses, and other therapists come in a listen to his lungs.  He actually grew somewhat accustomed to having people use a stethoscope on him--he learned to sit quietly when they were listening to his breathing.  Our doctor said that their main concern was pneumonia, but x-rays would let us know.  Getting the x-rays taken wasn't fun at all, but we did accomplish it in a reasonable amount of time for a two year old.  Then we waited...

and waited...

yep, and waited some more.  Gratefully I happened to have two Hotwheels in my purse.  As the mother of three boys I never leave home without a car or two...for this very reason!  You just never know when they will be needed.  A Respiratory therapist came in and gave J his first Nebulizer treatment.  He responded very well and his breathing seemed to come a bit easier.  We all experienced a measure of relief at that point.

(Have you ever seen anthing cuter in a hospital gown??  Not that I want to repeat this situation ever again!)

As we were waiting, The Big Guy Lowe and I had a pretty casual conversation about our trip to Hawaii.  We both agreed that neither of us had any problem cancelling our trip--we just wanted to make sure our little guy was okay.

After waiting a while longer, our doctor returned with the diagnosis that our son had complications from a household virus--NOT pneumonia.  We were so relieved!  Another breathing treatment was given and we were instructed in how to give him additional treatments at home.  Our J looked like he was feeling much better and even smiled and said "thank you" to his doctors.

It was with great relief and gratitude that we left the hospital that night.

After much discussion and soul-searching, The Big Guy Lowe and I decided that all would be well and we would continue with our plans to leave for Hawaii in the morning.  Grammy HB, my mom, is an amazing person, someone that I have no doubt loves our boys and would do whatever was required to take care of them.  I am so grateful for her love of the boys...and her love of The Big Guy Lowe and I.  She reassured us over and over that all would be well and there was no reason for us not to leave on our scheduled vacation.  As I finally went to sleep late that night, I felt a peace that all would be fine.

I'll just add a little follow-up to this post.  Grammy HB was able to take J into the pediatrician's office for a follow-up appointment on Wednesday morning.  They determined that he did indeed have pneumonia and needed to be put on a strong antibiotic.  My mom assured us that he was doing well in spite of being sick and was taking his medicine, eating, sleeping and playing without a problem.  She reassured us that all was well and we should continue to enjoy our vacation.  Both The Big Guy Lowe and I looked at each other while we were sitting in our room in Maui, because while sitting in the ER, we had agreed that we wouldn't go on our trip if J had Pneumonia.  Hmmm.  We're extremely grateful that all ended well and he is doing fine.  I cannot share enough of my gratitude for my Mom and how lovingly she took care of our boys in our absence...even a two-year-old with pneumonia.  We love our family greatly--both immediate and extended, and consider ourselves extremely blessed. 

Relief

I considered taking a picture of The Big Guy Lowe and I walking into the Kearney Breast Center today, but just couldn't do it.  If someone could have looked into my heart and known the fear I had at that moment, they would have understood why.  It was just something I wasn't capable of doing.  Today wasn't the first time I have taken this kind of walk.  That happened when I was 23 years old...and there have been other times between then and now.

As we walked to the elevator I kept telling myself that I have made it through all the past scares.  Benign tumors have become something of a favorite past time my body has taken up--without requesting my   permission.  A few months ago I noticed changes and pain.  There had never been pain before.  I shared what I was experiencing with The Big Guy Lowe and we decided to wait and see how things progressed.  The pain left, but then returned.  This time The Big Guy Lowe wasn't about to let me wait any longer before seeing my doctor.  It's interesting how quickly you can be seen by a doctor and then have a mammogram and ultrasound scheduled when there is motivation--on the doctor's part.  This past week has been an ongoing challenge of keeping a brave face on--to help try to keep myself calm, and to help those 'in the know' around me calm too.  I really didn't have any major feelings of foreboding, in fact, for the most part I actually did feel calm.  It was just those few times that I found myself wiping tears from my cheeks as fear crept in.

Once we arrived at the center, I could at least focus on filling out paper work.  We were then asked to sit as someone would be right out to get me.  The Big Guy Lowe tried distracting me by pointing out recipes in Good Housekeeping,  but unfortunately, I wasn't really interested.  Finally, I was asked to head back for the mammogram.  At that point I was told that The Big Guy Lowe would not be able to accompany me to that because of radiation.  I stood up, gave him a kiss, and followed the nurse as my eyes welled up with tears.  Man!  I was just one scared little girl!

Without going into details, the mammogram was successful and I was amazed at the pictures they were able to get.  Finally, The Big Guy Lowe was invited to join me for the ultrasound.  I specifically wasn't paying attending to what the technician was doing, but my sweetie was able to watch everything that was happening as she measured two seperate areas.  He told me later, that was when he started getting nervous.  It probably was a good thing that I couldn't see him from the position I was in!  She then completed that test and went to let the radiologist know we were finished.  Less than a minute later, she was back with the radiologist.  At that point, The Big Guy Lowe and I saw eachother and we were both nervous.  He later told me that he had determined if we were going to have to go through surgery/treatment, that he was going to suggest that I have a plastic surgeon present.  As soon as one thing was taken out, something else would be put in!  I just laughed. 

It's good to laugh.

Gratefully, there was good news.  Yes, some new things were found, but they follow my very productive "creating" history.  I was given all the cautions of what I should do if things were to "change" again, but overall, the doctor, technician, The Big Guy Lowe and I were all happy with the results!  In fact, after all the medical stuff was over, the doctor and The Big Guy Lowe had quite a discussion about New York, lacrosse, and other areas of life.  Go figure! I go there to get my measly little boobs looked at, squished, and gooped up--and my husband leaves with a new friend!  :)

We're grateful for today's outcome.  I know I will have to make that walk again at some future date, but until then I will focus on the blessings I have today.  I love my three boys.  I love my husband.  We have many blessings and are blessed with the challenges we do have.  I'm grateful...and so relieved.

Next time I'll look sooner...

I've discovered that I'm the kind of mom that tends to 'play down' events that often bring discomfort and even some tears to the lives of my kids.  Example--I wait a bit after my kids fall on the ground, to see if they can handle the situation and work through it.  When cuts and bruises happen I let the boys know that Heavenly Father made our bodies to get better, so even though there might be a scrape, they will be okay.  You know, that kind of thing.  Well, a week ago today, this plan kind of back-fired on me!

Our oldest son came home from school and casually mentioned that he itched on his legs.  I continued what I was doing and just reminded him to rub the itch instead of scratching.  All seemed well.  I can recall back now that there were a few additional times that he mentioned this 'itching', but nothing seemed strained or concerned in his voice, so there was no real investigation...until just before bed-time. 

Here it comes, can you sense it?

Dinner is over and things are being cleaned up for the night when my son begins to cry as he says "my ankle hurts so bad--I can't move it".  Okay, at this point there are enough cautionary ques that I walked over to him and asked him to show me where he hurt.  He proceeded to pull up his pant leg and show me his right ankle--which at this point was so swollen and red that I couldn't even see the signs of the bone underneath!  I then noticed other bright red welts, of varying sizes on his leg.  The request for him to remove his pants came with the further discovery of yet more of these extremely itchy welts.  Off came the shirt revealing more on his trunk and arms.  For whatever reason, his upper neck and face were spared!  At this time of night our doctor's office was closed, so I tried to keep things calm and proceeded getting everyone ready for bed.  I got out the Benadryl--at least I could try to bring some relief to that awful itching that he couldn't seem to stop.  The good thing about all of this was he didn't have any other symptoms.  No fever, no breathing difficulties, the welts (hives) didn't form any kind of blister or head on them, there was just the appearance of some sort of allergic reaction.  While I was stumped as to their cause and pretty concerned, I didn't feel the need to rush off to the hospital.  A short time later, the Big Guy Lowe returned home from a late meeting.  After explaining everything to him we decided to get our son out of bed (where he was calmly sleeping) so we could both take a good look.  Gratefully, the Benadryl was working and I could tell that some of the swelling in his ankle had already started to go away.   He was given a blessing and we put him back to bed.

The next few days we were in contact with our doctors as we tried to figure out what had caused such a strong reaction.  I went into the school to talk with our son's teacher, scoured our home for anything new, and interrogated our kids about everything they had eaten...but we couldn't find a cause!

Gratefully, by Sunday our son was doing much better!  Hardly any hives left and the itching was almost gone!  While I hope our son never has to experience that again, it did get us out of Saturday soccer games in the pouring rain. :)  In retrospect, I wish I would have investigated my son's mentions of itching sooner than I did.  In the future, I'll try to do so, but for the most part I'm a firm believer in playing things down.  Oh well, all's well that ends well?  That's what we think at least!

HB Family Reunion 2009--Day Two...and on and on and on

Sunday morning came with a beautiful sunrise and clear blue skies...of course! While the day was beautiful and all, it just made it harder to keep the Sabbath Day holy by not water skiing or playing at the beach! We did go to church and attended the local congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--doubling their attendance! (There are quite a few of us HBs!!) In addition to the sunrise, our youngest woke with a 103 degree fever. It wasn't what we would have wanted for a vacation, but little kids often get little bugs and that's all we thought was going on. We still went to church, keeping our little guy to ourselves as not to keep our older boys from being with all their cousins at church. After Sacrament meeting the Big Guy Lowe and I decided to find a local walk-in clinic to have our little guy's ears checked. He had recently had double ear infections and we had the thought that perhaps they hadn't completely gone away--we had unfortunately had that experience with our middle son and he ended up getting tubes placed in both of his ears. We found the clinic and had our hot little boy looked at. After explaining our concerns about his ears, the doctor promptly inspected them and said they were clear and he was most likely responding to a virus. We left the clinic feeling grateful that his ears were okay, thinking it was a bit strange that the doctor didn't feel the need to check anything other than ears, but somewhat confident that our littlest would be feeling better by the next day.

Did I say "the next day"? Not so.

Monday came with continued fevers that we managed with Tylenol/Motrin keeping them between 102 and 103. Our little guy was miserable. He only wanted to be held by the Big Guy Lowe or me and only seemed to barely tolerate us even then! Oh, and the weather changed. It was now rainy and cold.

Tuesday came with fevers in the morning but finally breaking just before lunch! YEA!! We were so excited and happy. The sun even started coming out and we were planning on heading to the beach with the boys. We did notice that our little guy, while not burning to the touch, hadn't been eating or drinking much. The consequences of this became clear as I tried getting our little guy more comfortable by taking his pants off and noticing that his diaper was completely dry. Up to this point I hadn't been too worried about his fevers as he always had wet diapers--letting me know that he wasn't getting dehydrated. Upon finding the dry diaper I asked the Big Guy Lowe when he had last changed one. He hadn't. We both had assumed that the other had changed his diaper realizing that it had been over eight hours since he had a wet diaper. Can you feel my concern now?

One of my wonderful cousins, Melanie, directed me to the closest clinic in town. After a quick kiss and words of encouragement from the Big Guy Lowe, I headed out to have our little guy looked at again. I quickly found the clinic, but was soon informed that the walk-in hours didn't start until 5:00pm and it was only 3:00. The receptionist must have seen the tears starting in my eyes coupled with my screaming little guy when she added "...but we'll get you taken care of, honey". I was so grateful. A doctor agreed to see us and we only waited about 30 minutes. This doctor, unlike the first, did a full exam. After looking in his throat said that he suspected Strep because his throat and tonsils were so swollen, red and had white pustules. Because they don't offer rapid strep tests in the 'great white north', we opted to go ahead and start an antibiotic instead of waiting 48 hours for a culture to come back. Again, I experienced a slight feeling that we were finally getting somewhere and hoped that our little guy would be feeling better soon.

Did I say "feeling better soon"? He wasn't.

The Big Guy Lowe and I were a determined pair forcing fluids on the miserable little one, but the last thing we wanted was to end up in the Emergency Room. While we were successful in getting a slightly wet diaper by literally forcing the medicine and some fluids, it wasn't helping how he was feeling. Wednesday came with the same routine we had established earlier--the Big Guy Lowe and I would pass our littlest back and forth, trying to console him, hoping he would start feeling better, but never fully kicking the concerned feelings that seemed rooted inside.

Are you feeling our exhaustion yet? Are you feeling our little guy's exhaustion yet? Can you almost hear the constant cry, regardless of the hoops we were trying to jump through? We were still holding out hope that the next day would be better. We had given the antibiotic for over 24 hours, fluids seemed to be going down a bit easier even though we still fought a small battle to ensure this, and small bites of food were consumed by the little guy. All good signs.

"The silver lining of the cloud", you say? We wanted to believe so. Do I need to say that we were wrong...again?!

Thursday came with clear skies promising a beautiful beach day. We had an umbrella set up close to the water. We had brought a small blow-up pool for our littlest so that he could play in water without having the sun over him. We had high hopes. Alas, once again, our plans did not go as we had hoped. We continued our routine of passing the poor, little, miserable one back and forth, walking continuously as that seemed to be the only thing that seemed to distract him from his discomfort. A happy note, our other boys were deliriously happy playing with cousins in the water and sand! I can't imagine how difficult things would have been if the other boys wouldn't have been as happy and involved with everything going on with "Reunion". Nap time finally came and the Big Guy Lowe and I took our two younger boys back to the trailer to sleep. After a short discussion we both agreed that it was time for us to cut our losses and head home early. By the time naps were over and everyone had returned from the beach, we had our camp completely packed and cleaned. While it was sad we were leaving early, there wasn't any question that we had given a good 110% or more in trying to make things work that week.

Just before leaving, the Big Guy Lowe changed our littlest's diaper and called me over with a tone of voice that always makes me concerned and increase my rate of response. Yep, now there was a rash all over our little guy! We said good-bye to everyone that we could, loaded into the Volvo, and headed up to see a doctor for the third time before heading home.

I'm tired writing all of this! If anyone has continued reading this lengthy epistle, I imagine you are tired too, so I will close this now with an update after getting home and seeing our family doctor. The final straw was a Penicillin allergy!

How's that for a fun-filled family vacation? We did everything we could to make things work, but unfortunately things were out of our hands. Gratefully our older boys had a fabulous time, just reinforcing the happiness of "Reunion". Truly though, my house never looked so beautiful as it did at 4:20 Friday morning after driving through the night to get there. My greatest gratitude from the entire experience is knowing that the Big Guy Lowe and I do make a great team, come good or bad. Love you babe!

How happy are Happy Meals? Just ask me!

Today was one of those days.

How did I achieve those calming moments of peace?

It ended up not being that hard to do. In fact, the idea came to me with such clarity that I knew tonight was going to be a good night. I knew I would have that extra help just before getting the boys into the bath and then to bed. At that moment I had hope that all would be well.

Happy Meals.
All I had to do was pack my kids into the car and drive to our closest McDonald's for Happy Meals. Ahhh, I'm still basking in the peace of those precious moments. For any of you nae sayers out there--a little background into our day...

Late last night our youngest was running a HIGH temperature. Nothing more, gratefully, he's just been extremely miserable throughout this entire day. He woke up in the early morning hours very unhappy and has had a rough day. I made one of those calls to the pediatrician's office to see what recommendations they had for 105 degree fever in a one year old. I was told to control with the regular medications and if that didn't get the fever under 102 to call back after a sufficient amount of time. It worked and we have been fine for the most part, miserable, but fine. To add to our day, the Big Guy Lowe had an early morning flight to CA with a full day of work followed by a late flight back tonight. Gratefully it is just today, but today has seemed extremely long. With our youngest being sick, the boys and I haven't had any of our normal outings and I have been pretty wrapped up trying to soothe our little guy--resulting in not much playing with our other boys. Basically, a bummer day for everyone. Really.

But, a drive-thru keeps germs from spreading to others outside of our family--I'm responsible. It gives us some time outside the walls of our home--I'm adventurous! It makes it possible for the boys eat yummy(?) food that they generally don't get--I'm fun! I am saved from trying to make dinner holding/soothing a sick child--I'm relieved! And I get those precious moments of much needed blissful silence--I'm rejuvenated to lovingly finish our evening.

Thank you McDonalds. Let me tell you, while I may not say "Super-size me", those happy meals had to taste best to me, and I didn't eat a bite! This was a good ending for us tonight. Ahhhhhh. Sometimes silence is priceless.


And really, could anything this happy not be completely good for you?

A glimpse into our sick days

No one likes being sick, no one! This time of year always seems to cultivate the germs that wreak havoc with our temporary health--just enough to make us feel physically miserable and somewhat paranoid that everyone will end up getting sick before health is restored. As a mom this all has an added facet--being responsible for clean-up! Yuck!! It's a wonderful thing to have a husband who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty right along with me!!

Our oldest is in his second day of fevers over 103 degrees. The good part of this for me is that I have so loved just stroking his face and hair and having quiet times just to love him. For that I am grateful. The two older boys get to kick back and watch cartoons together--somewhat peacefully too!
I figured I'd throw in a few other pictures of our youngest as he is blissfully oblivious to my attempts at seperating him from germs. Ignorance truly is bliss! Is that really what I look like without makeup?

Ohhhh! I love those cheeks!! Don't you just want to chew on them or squeeze them or something???
At the same time that I've been complaining, I'm reminded how grateful I am for these small challenges. In our extended family right now, as I type, my youngest sister is in labor with their third child--a girl this time!! While this is a happy event, I am grateful that I am not in labor and getting ready to go through the infant stage of sleeplessness again. (recently been there/done that!) My sister is a strong one though, so I have no doubt that she will soar through these initial discomforts as they are expanding their beautiful and active family!! Good luck Emily!! In another branch of our family tree my cousin is laboring diligently to support her husband as he had a heart transplant just over a month ago and is currently facing life changing challenges each day. His surgery was performed in another city than where they live so my cousin has been seperated from her 4 children since the transplant other than an extended weekend when they were brought up to them. The kids have been lovingly watched over by grandparents and aunts and uncles, and all will be well. Blessings continue to come and we all rejoice as each hurdle is overcome--however large or small it may be. We love you Melanie and Scott!!

So I guess as I sit here, I am grateful for our sick days! Yes, there are aspects of them that I don't like, but looking around lets me see many other challenges that are being experienced by others that we love and I realize that we are just fine! I'll just keep the antibacterial wipes near by with a prayer of gratitude in my heart!