The title of this post can be sung to the tune of "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes". (Just got a little song in your head, didn't I?) Well....I haven't written much about Nash this winter...mostly because he just hasn't been himself! Don't get me wrong, there is nothing seriously wrong with him. It just seems like he gets hit with one thing after another! Please know, that I am not writing this for sympathy...or because I think my kid is so 'sick' because he really isn't and hasn't been. I just want to write this to keep family updated, and to help me remember because as time goes on, things just blur together! So... I thought that I should just give you a short synopsis of what his winter has been like.
The week of Thanksgiving *this is when it all started* Nash began to have trouble with his ears. We wouldn't really know that they were infected, he would just be a little "off". Then, his eardrums would rupture and they would start draining. (poor guy). We tried a 10 day course of Augmentin, and then as soon as he was done, his eardrums ruptured again. So, back to the doctor to try a different antibiotic, Omnicef. On the 2nd day of this antibiotic, Nash became feverish, stopped drinking, extremely fussy, and almost lethargic. (He was already not eating because of his ears.) I called the doctor on that Tuesday, and they said that these could all be symptoms of his ear infection. He continued to get worse, and I continued to call the doctor hearing the same thing. He was having no other symptoms of anything else! By Friday, he was sleepy sleepy sleepy and when I decided to let the Tylenol and Motrin wear off, his temp quickly shot up to 104+. So, of course we took him to see the doctor. I was thinking that there must be some other infection going on? The picture above was taken shortly before I put him in the car to drive to Dubuque. Long story short (or short story long) we took him and they figured out he had pneumonia. We were shocked because he wasn't coughing or anything...and we figured that his breathing was weird because of his fever....and whatever was in his mouth (did I mention that he had a bunch of white sores in his mouth too). They decided to keep him in the hospital overnight. So, mom and Nash stayed in the hospital..and they gave him lots of fluids, breathing treatments, and more antibiotics. By the next morning he was a totally different kid! He seemed to be well on the way to healthy! When we got home from the hospital, one of his eardrums ruptured AGAIN (even after all of that antibiotic) so it was time to make an appt with the ENT (ear nose throat doctor). He was fairly healthy for about a week...right up until Christmas. He started acting up again Christmas day and Christmas Eve...so we started breathing treatments again and that helped a lot! We saw the ENT shortly before Christmas and he said Nash needs tubes in his ears and should have adenoids out. We were leery about putting our 'baby' under general anesthesia...and taking something out of his body that the Lord put there (his adenoids)! Dr. King did say that no anesthesiologist will put him under within one month of having pneumonia so we would have to wait for a month to even set up the surgery.... which gave us time to think, and gave Nash time to have another ear infection!
This round of ear infections helped us to make the decision to put the tubes in his ears, and we decided to do the adenoids too...only because we didn't want to put him under general anesthesia any more than we had to. SO, fast forward to Wed. Feb 9th. Nash had his surgery and it went very well. We got there at 8:15 AM and left at 10:45 AM. :) In the recovery room he was more fussy than most kids when he came out of his anesthesia so the nurses gave him some Demerol through his IV. Once he had a little nap with the Demerol, he was drinking his milk and ready to go home. We were extremely impressed with his so called recovery. He was pretty happy for just having surgery and actually ate a good lunch and supper that day, and slept decent that night! THEN... :) Thursday afternoon and evening he began to get fussy. Now, keep in mind that the doctor, and all of our friends who have had this surgery done on their kids, said that the only fussy day was the first day. After that, the kids were pretty much back to normal. NOT OUR KID!!! :) Nash became even more fussy, stopped eating, and was up almost every hour at night for 3 nights... (of course this was over the weekend, so no ENT available). On Monday we took Nash back to Dubuque to see Dr. King. Turns out that Nash is in that 5% of kids who don't handle the surgery well. His adenoid bed was inflamed and sore and it was making his ears, throat, nose and head hurt. They gave him a shot of a steroid (yes, our son is on steroids) and a prescription for another antibiotic and sent us on our way. The next day when I came into the kitchen and found this:
I knew that he must be feeling better! So, since Monday he has been improving more and more every day. We are thankful that he is feeling better...although the better he feels, the naughtier he becomes. We are glad to have the little boy back who climbs onto the table, dumps buckets of water out of the bath, and picks up anything he can carry and brings it out to the living room. He is even beginning to eat again. Nothing like he normally eats, but that will take time! (don't worry, 'the moose' still weighs 30 lbs.)
Now...I understand that, in general, Nash is a very healthy kid. We are very lucky that all we have to deal with are things like this! Going back and forth to the doctor (with something so minor) I think of the parents who are actually dealing with kids who are really ill. I can't imagine having to deal with trusting the doctors and nurses with life/death illnesses. So, I have had lots of extra prayers going out for the kids and parents who are dealing with SO MUCH more than we have even had to think about! I am also more and more grateful every day that we have been so blessed with our kids being healthy and happy! Hopefully soon, Nash can start taking part in some more fun things to blog about!
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