WTF?!

Oh my freaking god.....

I think she might have chicken pox now.

She had a vaccination for it in November so if it is the pox it should be a mild case, but just the same she's developing a rash. I noticed one spot on her knee this morning & now there's quite a few more - thighs, butt (where you don't really want an itch), lower belly & a couple on her her arms & back. Nothing on her face but we're back to the runny nose thing & she's also cutting three premolars right now so drool a plenty & crappy sleeps.

I really don't want to keep complaining but what is this, some sort of bizarre karmic retribution deal? Was she some evil despot in a previous life or something? I mean she can be a wee bit tyranical but hey, she's only 14 months old!

Please, please, please, don't start scratching my little Doodlebug.

~ On a good note, we figured out how to transfer videos from the camera to the laptop. It was easy enough for a monkey. Big surprise. ~

De-snotified

Looks like Snot-Fest is over. Since the goal of the festival was to glorify X-treme mucus excretions / secretions in all its forms & inflict as much pain & suffering as possible in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, it was a raving success. Well, maybe not the enlightenment. I did spend an inordinate amount of time pondering the mysteries of pain though (that would be wallowing in its inflicted misery) & my insight into psychological & physical suffering is undoubtedly profound. And so, gentle reader, since I shared with you the details of horking up mass quantities of chunky green phlegm, I only feel obligated to impart upon you my garnered wisdom which is, in a nutshell, this:

pain sucks.

It debilitates the mind & makes one a selfish cantankerous suckhole. Of course there is much more to my awesome thesis but I shall leave that for another day. Because I'm tired. From the pain. From my broken rib that I cracked hacking pieces of my lungs out. (Or possibly from sneezing 243 times in a row. Seriously, I broke a rib. Near my heart, under my boob, right where my bra strap is now digging in. I feel like I’m about 80 years old. Next I’ll be breaking a hip slipping on some spilt milk. Or dog piss.) From the crappy sleep I've been getting. From shoving syringes of medication down my child's throat while she cries "nay nay nay" (no). From fighting flailing limbs during diaper changes. From having to deal with the stupid dog while Sugar Daddy is out of town.

Guess what woke me up last night after finally falling asleep around midnight? Come on guess. 12:31 am & it’s the sound of dog piss hitting the floor of my ensuite bathroom. Yup. That's right. He's asleep, then suddenly gets up to take a whizz. Inside. Wait though.... that's not the best part. To top off the piddle, while I'm cleaning that mess up, hoping that Doodles won't wake, mr. asshole is taking a shit in my dining room! It's not like he didn't get any opportunities for doing this during the day either. At this point I'm just waiting for him to kick the bucket. Seriously.

O.K. What else is new? We switched antibiotics for the coppertop's ears as they weren't clearing up. On Sunday I noticed that she'd also cut a molar. I'm sure this was half the reason she was so miserable at the doctor's on Friday. Anyway, since it's come through she's been awesome - way more comfortable & happy (except at medicine time). Weird though is why she'd get a molar before some of the other ones. She's got 4 on top, 3 on the bottom & now this molar on the bottom with nothing in between. I think there's another one coming in on the other side too because she's been chewing on her fingers all week. Also, until yesterday, she has not been napping. From Sunday until Thursday afternoon the crazy monkey did not nap once. She'd go to bed earlier & wake later, thank goodness, but the lack of naps hasn't left me much time to do anything besides some much needed laundry. I have a million blogs to catch up on, some thank-you cards to write & yes, still, some photos to organize.

Did I tell you the silly baby broke our camera? She threw it off the half height wall that separates our living room from the dining area. The lcd screen is cracked & needs replacing. This happened once before when Sugar Daddy took it on a trip but then it was still under warranty. Now, we have to either buy another screen & attempt to fix it ourselves or get a new camera. Do you know how hard it is to take pictures through the tiniest viewfinder in the world? Plus you can’t see how crappy they turn out until you transfer them to the computer. The computer that is now running Vista, which is really pretty & all, but as of yet keeps crashing as soon as I put in the photo card. So now all the pictures from Ottawa are on Sugar Daddy’s laptop & he has yet to send them to mine. I am the keeper of all photos so this is totally driving me crazy. The video camera I got for xmas has made up for the lack of photo taking but I still haven’t had the chance to figure out how to transfer the stuff to my laptop. I’m sure it is so simple a monkey could do it but since I’ve sneezed out all my higher functioning brain cells I have given up on attempting anything harder than playing rounds of Mahjong.

Anyway, that’s it. Back to Sesame Street dvd’s, Mahjong & fighting with my internet connection. Toodles from the Doodles.

The one where I complain some more

No, no pictures yet. Because I suck. Because I'm too busy with our festival of snot. And pain filled cavities of bacteria infested snot. My eye sockets feel like I've got one of these being ravaged around inside them.









Looks painful eh? Oh hell ya!

My teeth feel like someone has been taking a hammer to them whilst I sleep. Who knows when that has been, because despite me having to keep my excrutiatingly tender eyelids shut to keep out painful triggers like retina burning sunshine (oh but what is that? It has been nothing but clouds & snow here.) for the majority of the day, it's been a good long time since I've had a snooze that lasted more than 3 hours at a time. Because either Doodle Bug is coughing, feverish or sleeping fitfully, or I wake myself up coughing & then I have to haul my ass out of bed so I can hork up chunks of green phlegm.

Oh sorry, did you not want to know that?

My bad.

This morning I got diagnosed with a sinus infection & was given scripts for antibiotics, decongestant / expectorant & was then offered one for vicodin. Though I was sorely tempted I figured it might not be a great thing to offer up in one's breastmilk. The doc told me if I waited for at least 4 hours before nursing it would be ok but since the little coppertop is still not well, she doesn't have much of an appetite for the solid food & wants to nurse more often than that. So alas, no vicodin. Just three extra strength Advils at a time. Even then, they are not quite enough to dull the pain completely.

We were then sent up to the pediatric office again because the Doodles wasn't looking too good either. We'd been there Friday for the pink eye (given drops - cleared up over the weekend) & were lucky to once again be fit in between the regular appointments & the head trauma that was on it's way. Since the xmas holidays emergency visits the poor baby has been traumatized & freaks out every time she sees a doctor's office / stethescope / syringe / inhaler mask / friendly nurse or doctor. Once she starts freakin' her breathing gets worse. So... more traumatic treatments & more crappy breathing. Today she got another start to a round of steroids & puffer meds to use in the nebulizer & to top it all off, antibiotics for an ear infection. We're also shoving advil down her throat for pain & fever.

It feels like we've had the plague for months & I'm so sick & tired of being sick & tired. If I'd known it was going to last like this I would've bought some shares in Kleenex or Puffs or Advil. Please somebody take me out back & put me out of my misery.

Getting back to normal?

Just thought I'd let you know, we finally made it back to our West Coast home. Lucky us got to spend an hour on the tarmac in Toronto while the maintainence crew tried to fix the cargo door. Since that was apparently impossible & a major flight hazard we then had to switch planes with another hour or so wait before taking off. Generous Air Canada gave everyone on board a free alcoholic beverage as compensation. Woo hoo! A free Coors Lite! I shoulda received 5 more for the having my heart in my eyeballs trying to deal with the crazy turbulence. It was probably the bumpiest ride I've ever been on. Nothing like being in a metal tube 30,000 feet above the oh so solid earth, while skipping frantically over waves of storm clouds blowing gale force winds. Fun. At least the silly baby slept almost the entire way.

Now that we are back, we are trying our best to recover from the RSV (I like to call it Respiratory Snot Virus). Seems she gave it to me so I'm hacking up my lungs periodically throughout the day & blowing my nose raw. Since Doodles doesn't know how to hork up mucus yet (I'm working on teaching her that trick) she spends the day rubbing her honker & smearing snot all over her face. I try to wipe it all away but some of it has made it into her peepers & it looks like she now has pink eye (conjunctivitis - viral). It's like she's got creamy snot in her tear ducts & it gets crusted on her lashes. I am about to try the breast milk in the eye remedy but if that doesn't work it looks like we'll be back at the doctor's sooner rather than later. This sickness is just so gross. We are walking snot factories & I've gone through half a box of kleenex in about an hour. At least her breathing is back to normal - still sounds like a mangy purring cat but hey, I miss having cats around.

Speaking of pets, we got Joxer the Mighty Dog back from the kennel the day after we got in (at 1am!) & he is still sulking around the house with a bitterness bred into the fibre of his being. Apparently he was outside for about a week as it turns out the kennel is outdoors. Sugar Daddy swears he didn't know this when he dropped hime off & so we are both feeling pretty guilty. The owners took him in for week two because he wasn't doing so good in the cold doghouse & he's come back to us about 8 pounds lighter. He looks great, like a puppy, but the weight loss is not helping our guilt any. Oh well, he's already back to stealing food from the baby so I'm sure it won't last long.

So that's it for the update. I've got photos to organize (my only resolution this year - hopefully manageble) & manipulate & post to Flickr. I'll get some up as soon as we can so you can share in the joy that was our xmas vacation. Photos coming soon include no scenic pictures of St. John's (because I barely went outdoors), perhaps a couple from the Doodles' christening (yes we heathens baptised our demon child), Sugar Daddy with his awesome Christmas present from me (just wait for the awesomeness) & maybe some video clips from my new toy (courtesy of the hubby). Signing off to go clean my mess. Later dudes.

Grounded

We were supposed to be back in Seattle by now. We arrived in Ottawa on the 30th after having a grand time in St. John's, hanging out with Sugar Daddy's family & celebrating Christmas. Doodle Bug had a runny nose before we left, but we weren't sure if was because of the tooth she was cutting or if she caught something from her cousins. On the plane ride she started coughing & seemed irritable & tired. It got worse from there.

She woke up with a fever the next morning & got progressively hotter & sicker throughout the day. Her nose was running profusely, she was coughing & sneezing & really really grumpy. We did the Tylenol infant cold treatment but by late afternoon she was burning up. I've never felt her that hot before & her breathing was starting to become really shallow, rapid & wheezy. When she started getting listless & unresponsive on top of all this we figured it was time to get some treatment. Being New Years Eve & a Sunday all the walk in clinics had closed at 3:00 so we had no choice but to go to emergency at CHEO.

Seems there was quite a number of other babies & tots there with the runny nose, cough & fever thing so we thought we were in for a long wait. The triage nurse had other plans however because once she assesed the terrified babe with breathing difficulties she sent us to the mask room where two other infants were being treated with what looked like steam. We were taken to a treatment room where we got a mask of our own that was filled with ventolin in a saline solution (this is how I understand it at least). The medicated vapor burbles out of the mask for 10 minutes at a time & she was to get three treatments in a row. I tried to hold her but the little fighter put up too much of a struggle for me to contain so her daddy got to do the dubious honours. Oh what a mess. She got some Tylenol & Advil to take down her high fever & then had to take a liquid steroid (prednisone I think). We had to wait 4 hours after the steroid was administered before we were allowed to go home so we spent hours rocking her, reading, eating crappy food & listening to wailing babies & kids. Strange how it all becomes background noise after a while.

Because she had been exposed to her cousin with pnemonia we were told she'd have to have a chest & heart x-ray to rule out the possibility of her symptoms being the result of having that herself. Count yourself lucky if you've never had to witness your small child get a chest x-ray. Holy fuck - it was the most heartbreaking sight. I had to place her on this little bicycle type seat with her legs dangling beneath her. Then I had to hold her arms up straight above her head while the technician placed two pieces of plexiglass around her torso, pinning her arms in place. The pieces were velcroed together so she was stuck in this clear tube with only her feet & face free. The feet kicked in protest as she screamed (good for the xray but not my heart) & cried trapped in the evil contraption. At first she faced the wall away from me but then she was turned to the side so she could see me out of the corner of her eye. The look of terror & the sadness of betrayal pretty much broke me to pieces. I'll never be able to wipe that picture from my mind. But hey, no pnemonia so we were finally able to head back to my aunt's place where we were (& still are) staying.

We fought the fever & the poor breathing all night & no one got a good night's sleep though we were all exhausted. The next morning she seemed a bit better but wouldn't eat, had no voice, was still running a fever though not nearly as bad & was beside herself with uncomfortableness. The previous day all she would eat was two mandarin oranges & one eighth of a jar of baby food. The day before that she had also not eaten much but was nursing quite a bit. With all the breastmilk & no solids we were back in seedy liquid diapers that we hadn't experienced in months. All the acidity from that plus the irritation of the urine bag the night before (plastic baggy stuck to her skin to get a urine sample) gave way to terrible diaper rash. So the poor kid was having teething pain, burning privates, sore throat from being sick & screaming, fever off & on, chest congestion & breathing difficulties. I've never felt so useless in trying to make my baby comfortable.

Then her breathing got worse again. Her rate was probably triple what it normally is, very shallow & raspy. We decided to head over to CHEO again because the ventolin puffer (with spacer) wasn't controlling it anymore despite having administered it every two hours & then every twenty minutes. We could see the panic developing in her eyes & she was exhausted from just breathing. Once again the triage nurse sends us for treatment right away & we start round two of the masks. Thankfully tonight there will be no chest xray, pee bag or steroid gel being shoved into her mouth. Just some Advil for her hoarse throat that was barely able to squeak out her protests against her torture. She fell asleep during the mask treatments but would wake up with terror in her eyes everytime one of the fantastic nurses came in to check on her. It was so pitiful & I was at the end of my wits trying to keep back my tears.

Oh ya. Then she got the mucus augered out of her nose. That was fun. I got to hold her legs while hubby held her head & arms as the nurse suctioned out the snot. At least they diagnosed something from it. Turns out the poor sweetie has RSV. Most kids will get this virus before the age of three & it normally presents itself as a cold. Some kids are apparently at risk for a more severe reaction to the bug than others, like preemies & those with respiratory problems like asthma. From what I gather those that get a severe bout are then more likely to be diagnosed with asthma later, but whether it's because they had that in the first place that made them more prone to a severe attack or if the RSV triggered the asthma no one seems to know.

So we pretty much have our diagnoses of asthma with the obvious difficulties she was having, her response to the drugs & her over-inflated lungs in the chest x-ray. The RSV has been a miserable bugger but as of today, after sleeping about 20 hours in the last 24, she seems to be coughing a bit less. When we spoke to the doctor about having to travel the next day she expressly forbade us from getting on a plane for at least the next 5 days, if not a week so we are grounded until Sunday at the very least. I guess that means we technically now have the time to see the people we have not had a chance to see yet, but I don't want to take the Doodles around anyone who has wee ones as we're not sure how long she will be contagious. We are armed to the teeth with medicine & Sugar Daddy got a script for a nebulizer (same type of machine that the hospital uses to make the vaporous ventolin) so we've been using that to keep her lungs as clear as we can. I can't say enough about the awesomeness of CHEO & their wonderful emergency staff. Hopefully none of you will ever have reason to use their services, but if you do, you will be in the best of hands.

Anyway, just thought I'd keep you all up to date even though I'm making you suffer with piss poor writing skillz. I'm exhausted & sick & so full of leftover xmas food that I'm almost comatose. Ugh.