doctor | The Angel Forever

Category Archives doctor

Antibiotic success and possible failure

Posted on November 24, 2008 9:29 am by TheAngelForever

Friday night JSL gave us quite the scare. His temperature climbed to 102.7. This may not alarm most people, but JSL had a febrile seizure in February and his temperature was 102. His normal temperature on our thermometer is also just around 97, so this was almost 5 degrees warmer.

Urgent Care opened at 10:00 Saturday morning and we were there first in line. The doctor there said his lung to his ear, and throat looked fine. When he got to his ears he could not see anything. JSL had so much wax he could not see the ear drum. He wanted to try to clean them out some to get a better look. With the tool he was able to get enough wax out of the right ear to see it was fine. The left ear would not budge. The doctor was about to send us home at that point.

I opened my mouth and questioned using a peroxide water mix to try to blast out the wax. He said that does not work for little kids. I again reminded him that this was a VERY high fever for my son and he did not see the other ear properly. He agreed to get the nurse in to try to clean it. After 4-5 syringes of the mixture a huge plug came out of JSL’s ear. The doctor came back in and admitted I was right to insist. JSL had a raging ear infection. So bad that they told us we must head back to our doctor in 10 days for a follow up.

This is JSL 24 hours after starting the antibiotic and fever free since before bed on Saturday.

NHL has potentially tried to one up his brother. It looks like his antibiotic for the pinkeye may not be working. It had started to look a little better during the day yesterday. Then last night it looked swollen, pink and off again. This morning when he woke up it was slightly stuck shut again (had not done that the two previous nights). So, it looks like he will be going to the doctor today and is missing another day of kindergarten, poor kid. I also called NHL’s school nurse. She had told me the other day that at least two children had to be sent home again 2-3 days after the initial medicaiton was given because the infection came back. Looks like we may have something like that. Hopefully we can get this kicked enough so he can at least go to the Thanksgiving feast tomorrow before no school the rest of the week.

Categories:
doctor jsl NaBloPoMo nhl photos sick kid weekend

Return of the pink monster

Posted on November 21, 2008 9:18 am by TheAngelForever

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating. Th

Aloha #23

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

My question for this week changed thanks to events on Thursday. I had planned on doing something to link up with a bloggy friend. Unfortunately, plans changed because I can not think clearly enough to do it properly. I will explain below.

This week my question is:

Have you ever had pink eye? If your child has, do you have any tips on how to wrangle them (aside from sitting on them) for drops?

Yesterday at around 10:00 in the morning my called ID showed a number from the school district. I was hoping that it was the OT calling about things. No, it was not her. The person on the other end simply said to me "Hi Mrs ___ guess who I have here with me?"

Notice that she did not identify who she was. I was able to figure it out. Apparently the pinkeye monster that has been wrecking havoc in NHL’s kindergarten class got him. I asked if it was just irritated from forgetting his allergy medication. She agreed that it may be from that and would give it until after lunch to see. Meanwhile I called our doctor’s office to get something called in quick because I knew it was not good. The nurse had already sent another child home with goo coming out of her eye, another was home sick with it and 4+ kids had it last week, plus I was dealing with it last weekend.

Bad vibes were coming from this entire thing. Sure enough at about noon the nurse called back. His eye was more swollen and getting really red now. I packed up JSL and went to school to pick up NHL. By 1:30 we were on our way to the pharmacy to get the drops that were called in. NHL was NOT happy about this. He recalled the last pinkeye that he had just a month ago.

Yesterday I literally sat on him to get the drops in. Sure he may only be five, but man the kid is strong. When he went to bed his eye was really red and we warned him when he got up it may be stuck shut. Sure enough at 11:00 he woke up and it was crusted over. It happened again at 6:00 this morning. I am worried because his eye looks really bad after 4 sets of drops now. The worst part, I am not sure if a bump/abcess like object is forming under his eye by his cheek bone. I will be keeping a close eye on it now and see how it goes.

Susan, I promise I will do something even more special ASAP. For now I must work on wiping eye boogers and washing our hands and everything else in the house. WIth any luck Thanksgiving break next week will help to wipe out the pinkeye that has invaded NHL’s classroom.

Categories:
Aloha Friday doctor losing my mind NaBloPoMo nasty things nhl photos school sick kid

Look into my eyes

Posted on November 15, 2008 5:51 pm by TheAngelForever

As a former teacher, I know it is never good when the school nurse has to send home a letter to parents. Thursday afternoon we received our first one home this year with the kindergarten kid. The note that NHL had in his backpack was telling parents that the room had a large number of cases of pinkeye. I called the nurse to ask about it. I was concerned since NHL had pinkeye less than a month ago and it was what started the illness that ended up with JSL in the hospital for four days in February. According to the nurse, several kids had come to school only to be sent home with it, and others were coming in with antibiotics on their own.

Care to guess what happened to me when I woke up Friday morning?

Sure enough when I tried to open my right eye is was all crusted over and did not want to open. Ugh! I wanted to wait and see what was going to happen. Since the weekend was coming and I did not want to get stuck going to Urgent Care, I called our doctors office. I left a message that I had been helping in my son’s kindergarten class where an outbreak of pinkeye was going on and I had it.

I stayed in waiting for the call all Friday morning and early afternoon. Sure enough they called 10 minutes after I left to get NHL from school. They called in a tube of ointment for me (not thrilled about it, but it is better than nothing). I opted not to pick it up yesterday just in case I was rushing into this. Here is my eye as it looked earlier this morning.

After a nap this morning with JSL I got dressed and went to the pharmacy for my ointment, clearly it was time. For some reason I am quite susceptable to pinkeye, no matter how careful I am washing my hands. Hopefully I can keep this to myself like NHL did a few weeks back.

Remember, you can not catch pinkeye from just looking at this photo!

Categories:
doctor me moments NaBloPoMo nasty things photos school sickness weekend

An eye glue experience

Posted on October 18, 2008 9:37 pm by TheAngelForever

Dear NHL,

Right now you are sleeping peacefully in your bed. This is a very good thing after the last few days. I know you do not understand everything that is going on, but mommy and daddy will take care of you. We promise to get your allergies under control so that the stuffy nose and cough leave you alone.

Just when we thought that was the only thing going on you woke up screaming and so scared just before 4:00 this morning. When Daddy arrived in your room you declared that your eye was stuck shut. Sure enough your left eye had junk all around it. You were such a brave kiddo letting Daddy get everything off. Of course you would not go back to sleep. You were too afraid of your eye getting glued shut again.

When we went to the doctor today you were such a big boy telling them everything that was wrong. You even mentioned how you bit your own hand while eating breakfast. Thank goodness we found out that your breathing is nothing serious, your ears look fine, but the eye is a different story. You most definitely have pink eye (Mommy knew that) and now have to use medicine for a week.

I know that you hate having eye medicine, but please try to be brave. When you kick, scream, and move around it only takes that much longer. Daddy and I promise to do our part to make this go as quickly as possible.

I love you kindergarten kid,

Mommy

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I found a neat new Mommy meme and decided to participate. To join in please click on the button below.

Dear Kid Saturdays at Cutest Kid Ever

Categories:
allergies Dear Kid Saturday doctor nhl photos sick kid

Always trust your instinct

Posted on September 25, 2008 8:38 am by TheAngelForever

Ever have one of those moments where you just want to slap yourself in the head? Yesterday was one of those days and I should have stopped it long ago.

NHL was diagnosed with seasonal allergies in the spring. He was put on a pediatric dose of Singular. I had been on it as an adult and had wonderful results. Of course at the same time NHL was put on it there was a lot of controversy with the medication and use with children. Our allergist noted the recent studies and told us to watch and see if there were any behavior changes.

Back in April/May NHL’s teachers mentioned to me that he was acting different. He was more emotional, bothered by things more, and just not himself. When we went back to the allergist in August I told the doctor about this. I told him that it was hard for me to guess if it was the medicine or changes in his life. NHL was just finishing up at a school he loved and getting anxious about kindergarten already, so I had a hard time knowing.

The truth is things really started to fall apart in mid-August, just after our appointment. NHL cried for several days that he did not want to turn five years old. A huge red flag should have gone off in my head, but I was not thinking straight. I thought it was thanks to NHL being nervous about kindergarten. NHL never seemed happy, he was always tired, moped, emotions were high and low, and he was extremely impulsive. For the first time we were also having defiance issues.

When NHL started kindergarten things really blew up in our face. Since he started almost a month ago I have only had two days of slightly decent behavior reports. Yesterday was by far the worst. My son actually colored on his chair at school and when told to stop simply switched colors.

I was beyond mortified and frustrated. I did not know who this five year old child was anymore and talking to him was useless. I went home cried, put in calls for all of his doctors and went to my trusty Google friend and started to search about Singular behavior reactions in pediatric patients.

I quickly found this website and forwarded it on to my husband. JL honestly thought that I had written the June 1st entry since it was SO similar to NHL (just a few subtle differences). The allergists office called back within 10 minutes. He asked questions about the behavior. He did note that I had mentioned concern in August. I told him how things had intensified and I was frightened for my child. He asked if NHL was depressed. I told him about the birthday crying and how he hardly smiled these days, except for the smirk after doing something inappropriate. They called back again 10 minutes after the initial call and told me to STOP the Singular immediately and see if we note any changes in behavior over the next 2-3 weeks.

After that I e-mailed NHL’s teacher with the article and asked her to confirm if what was noted by the one parent sounded like my son. She agreed and thought we were onto something.

Most of the night I kept beating myself up. Why didn’t I stop this months ago? How could I do this to my baby? Why was easy breathing and allergy relief clouding my eyes from seeing the true problem at hand? Could this truly be the problem and wil it make things better so the new school can believe me that my child is not like what they have seen all this time?

Please, please, please learn from my stupid mistake. Always trust your instinct. You know your child best and need to be their advocate. Thank goodness I finally saw the light and hope that my sweet little five year old boy will be back in our life soon.

For JL’s view of things you can check it out here.