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.