Too scary...

Happy Halloween everybody!!

Back to the doctor again today... the little monster is dehydrated and super chapped after a couple days of scary diarrhea. Apparently if one is on a lot of antibiotics (and lord knows Alex has been on them a ton), eventually they start to kill off the good, healthy bacteria in your stomach and all hell breaks loose (and I mean loose). So today it's Pedialyte, probiotics, and lots of rest. Her red little bum is the scariest thing that I have seen this Halloween season...

When I called the doctor's office this morning they said they had a spot open right away. I always keep a diaper bag in my car so I bundled up the monster and ran out the door. By the time we got there she had a total blowout. Out the diaper, through the onesie, schmeared down the leg of the pants, and even on the socks. I undressed her in the exam room and cleaned her up only to find no diapers and no spare clothes in usually well appointed daddy bag. My scoutmaster would be so ashamed. I had to "borrow" a diaper from the staff and wrap the poor little thing in my jacket...

It's been a long week.

Déjà vu...

You may think that I am lazy and simply reusing old posts, but no... Alex has an ear infection. She was not herself yesterday morning so I took her to see the doc and her left ear is infected to the point of almost rupturing again. This has officially gone on long enough to prompt a trip to see an ear, nose, and throat surgeon on Saturday to discuss the necessity of tubes. We'll keep you posted...

On the plus side, we are now friendly enough with our pediatrician (given our frequent rendez vous), that she offered to let Alex borrow one of her daughters Halloween costumes. I'm don't think we will take her up on it, but seriously how nice is that?

It's a cold one out there today...

Tired of making lemonade...

It's been kind of a long year. Life keeps throwing lemons at us and we just keep trying to churn out the highest quality lemonade that we can muster. Normally we would have taken a couple vacations by this time of year. The baby was certainly goning to slow that pace, but we have pretty much been stuck in Ann Arbor... so we decided to take a short weekender to the left side of the mitten.

We rented a tiny little cottage in Saugatuck and just wanted to spend the weekend meandering, sleeping, and hanging out. It was slated to rain all weekend but we didn't care. We got there Friday night, dropped our bags, and headed out to get some grub. We had a good time, as did Alex (banging a spoon on a table at a busy restaurant is more fun than you can imagine!). Two hours later I was in the bathroom... sick, sick, sick.

I thought for sure I had food poisoning. I cursed the Wild Dog Grille and the damnable Manhattan Clam Chowder. It was a long night.

Saturday dawned cold and wet, and we managed to go out to breakfast. I didn't feel great but we were determined to enjoy the trip. We walked around a bit, we napped, we watch some football, we got some pizza. I felt crappy but we had fun. Two hours later Michele was in the bathroom... sick, sick, sick.

I was wrong about the food poisoning. I apologized to the Wild Dog Grille and the delectable Manhattan Clam Chowder. It was a long night.

We got up early and headed home. White rice, white bread, chicken soup. Thankfully the Lion's were blacked out... I don't think my stomach could have taken it. We are both still a bit out of sorts, but Alex seems fine.

Lemonade anyone?

One heart episode recorded

Update on the heart monitor- I had an episode on Tuesday on my way home from work. I had some difficulty taking a deep breath and pushed the button to record my heart beat. I called in the information when I returned home. The lady was super nice and said that she had no issues receiving the information and no need to call the ambulance. So I am happy...because I didn't have to go to emergency and I have a least one recording to talk about with the electro-cardiologist next month!!

On Fields O'er Which the Reaper's Hand has Passed...

No child's autumn is complete without a trip to the apple orchard/pumpkin patch, so how could we deprive Alexandra? Alright... we wanted fresh donuts and cider, sue us.

Either way, we went to a local family owned farm this weekend to pick out some pumpkins, have some cider and donuts, and enjoy the warm sun and cool breeze. Robin and Bob came with, and we had a blast. Though we were attacked by what may have been a swarm of killer bees. Donuts and cider make great bee bait.

Michele and Alex picked out a couple pumpkins to adorn our front porch. We all had fun wandering through the pumpkin patch. Next year we will pick some apples too... when Alex can appreciate it more. We also picked up a few pie pumpkins which I roasted and pureed... I set some aside to feed to Alex and froze the rest so that Michele could use it to make pies at Thanksgiving... and I made pepitas!

If it isn't cancer...it is my heart

Recently my echo cardiograms have shown a deterioration in my ejection fraction. That is basically the measure of how efficient your heart pumps out blood. This deterioration is believed to be a result of my chemotherapy. Okay, I am willing to have some heart impact as long as the cancer is gone. Well, my oncologist wanted me to follow up with a cardiologist to confirm the results and see what their recommendation was in regards to starting up on the Herceptin for the remaining 6 months. The cardiologist said that the current ejection fraction is manageable...no major impact to my life but it is not in the normal range. His recommendation was to not start on the drug again because who knows what my heart's reaction would be. While I was there, he found another heart issue. That is right, I go in for one thing and come out with another issue. Apparently my electrical wiring in my heart may be mis-wired. Sometimes I have a shortness of breath but thought it was all related to this ejection fraction thing. Well apparently I have some cells that are functioning as a pathway for the electric information in my heart that isn't supposed to. The cardiologist said that some people faint from this or feel lightheaded. I don't have any of that. But he wants me to be monitored for the next month and follow up with an electro-cardiologist. Great, more doctors. So I was set up last week with this 30 day monitor- it is like a pager with electric nodes. I do not have to wear it while sleeping or showering, but pretty much the rest of the day I am wired up. It was really annoying day one. It has become less annoying as the days progress.

The one major concern I have is what if I don't have any episodes while wearing this damn thing!! Then it was all for not. If I do have an episode, this thing records my heart beat and then I am to call the Lifewatch people and download the info via the phone. They basically have 4 possible responses:
1. Recording not received, please resend
2. Recording received, thank you
3. Recording received, abnormal heartbeat detected, proceed immediately to emergency
4. Recording received, abnormal heartbeat detected, an ambulance is on its way!!!
A little scary. They claim that this heart issue is not due to the chemotherapy. That this is something that I have had all my life...I think they are wrong. I am pretty sure that I never had these shortness of breath issues before BC but could be wrong. Anyway, that is the latest doctor's info from me...stay tuned, as I will give updates of an actual episode.

Alex seems to be feeling much better and even managed to sleep (with some coaxing) for 12 hours last night. A few observations to catch everyone up:

She might be thinking about letting go...

The only thing she likes better than looking out the window...

...is looking out the door...

How cute is she in her new clothes? I think she would rather eat the shoes than wear them but...

It's getting harder and harder to distract her long enough to change her diaper without a wrestling match so we introduced a new friend to the changing table... please meet Mr. Monster Man...
Suddenly she wants to take things with her as she moves around so she either has to crawl on one hand and one elbow...

...or just carry things in her mouth... you know, like socks...
Apparently 12 hours wasn't enough, because she is out...

The Rupture: End Times...

The end of days is upon us...

Ear infections in the little ones are horrendous. Miserable. Can't sleep. Grumpy, pissy, screamy. This poor baby. And, apparently when ear infections get bad enough, the pressure builds up until the ear drum ruptures. How terrible does that sound? The pressure builds up (that's the cause of the pain; the pressure) until it just pops. The fluid that has built up oozes out. Horrendous-er.

The good news is that when the ear drum ruptures, even though it hurts pretty bad in the moment, the pressure is relieved. All better. Not better. Because, even though she was already in the middle of her second course of antibiotics, the other ear got infected... keeping the pressure on. So she had to get new antibiotics in the form of a shot. Horrendous-est.

Of course she's still Alex. When she isn't waking up in the middle of the night or screaming in pain, she's a trooper. She's mostly happy and at worst cuddly. She seems to be feeling a bunch better and will probably go to daycare tomorrow.

Tubes may be on the horizon... but so might be the Apocalypse. Maybe we just need to let her eat more dirt.

Daddy Haiku...

Not Again, Again

her ear infection
clinging, wanting mama
heart break with a smile

For Michele at work...

Sound asleep... bum in the air.

Alexandra's 9 month checkup

On Monday we made the trip to the doctor for Alexandra's 9 month checkup. We had visited the after hours facility on Saturday because her ear infection was back so the visiting the doctor was fresh in her mind...not a good thing.

Here are her stats:

• Height is 29''
• Weight is 20.12 lbs
• Head Circumference is 17.5''

What this means is that she is 95% in height, 90% in weight and 75% in head circumference. This is pretty consistent with her previous visit so that doctor is quite happy. She asked if she was crawling and playing peek-a-boo. Both of which she is doing. All in all, she was pretty happy with how healthy and happy she was with the exception of her ears. So she has really had 2 different ear infections since starting day care. It seems like a lot more because they start her off on the weakest antibiotic for 10 days. Then when it is clear that it hasn't killed the infection then she is upgraded to another antibiotic and that has done the trick. So unless she gets 6 ear infections in a year, a continuous ear infection for 6 weeks or is really upset/uncomfortable due to the ear infections, we don't need to get ear tubes. I am a bit concerned about tubes...I never had them and would prefer Alex not have to go under general anesthesia. Of course, if I had been able to breast feed I feel like this wouldn't even be an issue but enough beating myself for no reason....

Wes and I love our doctor. When we were talking about the ear thing, she asked us why we had gone to after hours care instead of just calling her. She then confirmed that we had her home number. We expressed our concern with calling her at home and she stated that she would not have given us her number if she didn't want us to call. We feel she thinks Alex is the coolest!!! She had such patience with checking her heart and ears that Alex didn't cry at all. This has not been the case during recent ear checkups. So yeah, our little girl is growing up fast!!

I think we're in more trouble...

Busy Thursday...

I work from home and hang out with Alex on Thursdays & Fridays. Here is a very brief rundown of our day today...


We got up and saw Michele off to work and had breakfast, then I hit the laptop while Alex did laps around the main floor... living room, hallway, kitchen, living room, hallway, kitchen...As I continued workish behavior Alex watched the world go by out the front window. Thursday is garbage day and she loves watching the big trucks go by...
Then I sneaked outside... she wasn't quite sure what was going on...
After a while it was on to reading. Her cousin Max was recently gifted a very nice book about Cheerios, which Alex, as is her modus operandi, has usurped. She will "read" that book for an hour at a time...
After a nap and a conference call and lunch, we went for a walk which required some bundling up. How friggin' cute is her new hat?
We practiced some walking skills, both with my assistance and with that of a very cool walk behind hippo on loan from Maxwell...
Finally we finished up with some more random playtime and practiced talking with our mouths full...