2/25/11: dr's visit for C

I finally got Callen to sleep after 5am. I slept in the chair w/him off & on until 4am. then he "played" in our bed until 5ish. I still have no idea what his problem was. no fever. not acting sick. going to the dr this morning to get his ears checked just in case. don't want a repeat of that tonight. seriously thanking God for all the other nights that C's great. Dave & I are like walking dead today.

Turns out I was right. He has an inner ear infection in his right ear so he's getting numbing drops to help with the pain and antibiotics for 10 days. He was really good at sucking up both doses. He also got weighed. Came in at 16 pounds, 9 ounces. And I was also right about his teeth. His gums are swollen and she said it looks like he might get his bottom two front teeth in the next couple weeks.

2/22/11: L funny

Today Elodie was covering up Callen in the stroller so I asked why and she said, "to protect him from the predators."  I think it's from the zombie game she plays with her daddy.

2/19/11: L funny

Today Elodie said, "Mommy?  Where's Dave?"

2/18/11: C can roll onto side

C can most definitely roll onto his side and almost all the way over. He is on his side with his foot all the way over.

weight loss ;)

I'm excited at what the scale said today (luv bfing!) so i told my hubby what it said. he said that sounded like a radio station :D

2/7/11

finally finished my 440 page blurb book (blog from dec 2006 through feb 2009). now to double check my work. nothing like a $40 off groupon to get my butt in gear. :)

pizza

thoroughly enjoyed the hubby's homemade pizza. yum! plus it was so cute to watch L & D cook together.

told L to tell daddy who was playing today, expecting her to say the Packers & Steelers like she had just told me. L says the Packers and the bad guys are playing today :) so funny. she also said our team is out for the season b/c we lost.

2/5/11

can't believe i forgot to feed my baby tonight. (remembered an hour & 15 min late when i was giving him a bath so it was 1.5 hrs late by the time i fed him.) feeling like a bad mommy.

L better

Candy said, "L woke up feeling great I guess....she was sooooo happy and cheerful. A little stuffy and some coughing but she seems to feel great. Even wanted her hair curled. The last 2 days she hasn't even wanted it combed much less curled or ponytail. So glad she feels better. She's been couped up for several days now between snow and sick."

dave still has some symptoms but he's back at work today. if they don't go away by next tues, the surgeon wants to see him again. L's going to preschool today since she's been fever free 24 hrs and i checked their sick policy and she doesn't fit into any of the stay home categories.

2/3/11

had to turn off our water b/c i found water dripping out the fan in the bathroom. have to wait for dave to get home for work to figure out what's going on. could just be condensation from the attic...either way...not good.

get to get my baby back from her awesome aunt & uncle tomorrow. missed her a ton but really needed the break. can't believe how much i enjoyed going out to lunch today. hope L's feeling much better tomorrow. she's been really sick :(

Appendi- what?

So, it turns out that I, David, had and interesting experience that I wanted to share with you all. For the past two months it seemed like every Friday someone got sick, or got sicker, so that our weekends would get ruined. On Friday, January 21st the pattern seemed to continue. I woke up at 2:00am with a sharp, needle like pain in my lower abdomen (below my belly button). It seemed like I ate a porcupine or something. It hurt bad enough that I couldn't go back to sleep. An hour or so later I had enough and was just going to go downstairs since I was tossing and turning and didn't want to wake up Elizabeth. When I sat up the pain got much better. So, yay, I just propped some pillows up and eventually fell asleep sometime around 4:00am. I woke up at 6:30 and the pain was still there but this time it was a dull pain all over my lower abdomen. It wasn't a horrible pain, maybe a 4 on a 1 to 10 scale, but it was constant and rather bothersome. I have IBS and just thought it was an intestinal issue since the pain wasn't concentrated in one spot but all over my lower abdomen. I stayed home from work, and worked a few hours from home, and made an appointment with my GI doctor. When I got there they poked and prodded and asked a bunch of questions and couldn't really settle on what was wrong but gave me some stuff to help relax my intestines. We discussed having a colonoscopy (oh joy) and I got all the information on that. The nurse practitioner said the pain should go away sometime next week so, I went home, took the pill, and eventually went to bed. Saturday and Sunday seemed a little better but not much. Making dinner was fun because I would do some things and then brace myself for the pain, mix in another ingredient and then brace for the pain, flip the chicken and... well, you get the idea. Sunday I took Elodie to a birthday party and actually did OK. The pain at the party seemed a little better which allowed me to walk her around and such. Any improvement in the pain I attributed to the pill since it was suppose to help. Come Monday though things were much much better. I woke up to barley noticeable pain and off to work I went. Yay, I thought, we are finally getting over this which made Elizabeth say "yay, now you can get your colonoscopy." I set up an appointment to get my colonoscopy in about a week and a half... oh yippy (sarcasm). Throughout the day the pain was slowly getting worse which made sense to me since I was moving and walking around, the pain seemed better if I just sat down. Eventually I made it home and made dinner as usual now; cook, brace for pain, repeat; and eventually went to bed. The next day, Tuesday... oh lovely Tuesday, I woke up to pain that seemed a little worse than Friday. I was bummed but got ready for work and off I went. It seemed that the pain was was getting a little worse every minute but got through one meeting at 9:00 and tried to go to another. That meeting was tough because I was finding it hard to concentrate over the pain that was trying to claw apart my insides. I eventually gave up trying and went to get lunch... yes, throughout all the pain I never once lost my appetite. I finished lunch about 11:30 and the pain was getting to be about a 7 now. I talked to my mom who said I should go home but I thought I would be fine. I called the GI people and they said that I could double up on the medicine and that should help... it didn't. I started realizing that this was obviously something different than what people thought and called my regular doctor to get an appointment. He had an opening at 6:30 so I set that up. In about 10 more minutes I realized I couldn't concentrate on anything work related so maybe I couldn't "handle" it. I thought I would wait for a co-worker to come back from lunch, since there were 2 important meetings coming up in the next two days that I was suppose to run, so I could tell her that I might not be in the next day. At about 12:10 I said "screw that" and headed home. On my way home I called Elizabeth and told her I was coming home; she was out running errands and said she would be home as soon as she could. I also called my doctor back to see about an earlier appointment and set one up with a different doc at 3:30. I finally made it home, driving with pain is not very fun, and got inside. When Elizabeth got home she immediately said that my mom told her that I should go to the ER and that she thinks so to. She told me to call the GI people again and talk to them. I did, and the triage nurse there said that since the pain is worse I should go to the ER. OK, so everyone was telling me to go to the ER and at this point I just wanted the pain to stop so off I went. I figured since I drove myself home I could drive my self a short distance to the hospital and that way Elizabeth didn't have to worry about what to do with the kids. I canceled my doctor appointment on the way, I know, I am so responsible, and hobbled myself into the ER at Avista. Now, I must say, that I like Avista hospital. Once I got there things moved quickly and I wasn't sitting around for 4 hours dieing in the waiting room. I showed up, told the reception people the problem, and proceeded to sign something that I didn't read... something about privacy or whatever, who cares about that... and joked with them because they were saying how stubborn guys were with coming into the ER. "5 days with pain" they said, "men always take forever to come in." "But its not my fault" I said, "I called the doctor on the first day." "Sure yah did." :) I ended up in the lobby for about 30 seconds before the nurse came out and brought me back. I told her my story as she was taking vitals and writing down notes. We went to a triage room and I got to put on one of those fashionable hospital gowns that opens in the back, but at least I got to keep my boxers on. The doctor showed up shortly after and started pushing on my belly and I had the same tenderness and pain (pain was just worse) that I had on Friday, but this guys first thought was "well the appendix is down there so that's always a concern." Hmmmm... anyway, he said we needed to do a CT scan to rule out a bunch of things including an appendicitis, diverticulitis (which I really didn't want), kidney stones, and gallstones. While he was going to get people to do that, the lovely nurse I had set up an IV on me and then left to get some pain meds. I didn't know how the pain meds would affect me so I called my co-worker at work to tell her that she would have to run the meetings and that I probably wouldn't be in the office for a few days. The nurse then came back with the meds and, I must say, that I have never had any pain meds, other than Advil or Tylenol, but I see why people like them. The med took about a minute to work; I cant remember which pain med they gave me, I think it started with a D; but it made my face tingly, and feel a little puffy, made me a little lightheaded, and when I looked at the light in the ceiling it looked as though it were expanding... oh, and it reduced my pain from a 7 to about a 4 too but who cares about that. I was telling the nurse what was going on and she was giggling at me and then had to go help the other nurse get stuff for my CT scan. I told her that it was fine because the pink elephants on the ceiling and I were having a conversation; that made her laugh. Anyway, it was a short time before I was whisked away to the CT scan room and moved to the table slides back and forth under the scanner. The nice lady there told me that they were going to put in some sort of die through my IV that will feel cold and may give the sensation that I was wetting the table but its just the die filling up the bladder. She said that if I feel any tightness in my chest or anything to let them know. She started up the CT scanner and pushed the die stuff in. It did make my shoulder feel cold and then when it hit my bladder it did feel all warm like I was peeing all over the place but of course I wasn't. She than started to move the scanner over me. While that was going on I notice that I had a weird taste in the back of my throat from the die. Shortly after noticing that, I realized that my breathing was getting shallow and that my chest was getting tight. I started to tell them that my chest was getting tight which quickly turned into me telling them that I was going to puke. The nausea showed up really fast and she was moving the table out when I rolled over to my side and let loose. Luckily, through my puking skills, I manged to just miss the actual scanner and get everything on the floor. The lady then quickly started up the scan again because she didn't want to have to give me the die again. In the next minute we got all the pictures we needed and I was pushed back to my triage room. When I got back I called Elizabeth to give her an update and she had a billion questions which I couldn't answer and then the doctor walked in my room. I swear it was only a few minutes from when we got back from the CT room but in he waltzed and said that they know exactly why I was in the spot I am in. Apparently your appendix is normally 6-7 mm in diameter, about the size of your pinky finger, and they actually consider ones that are 8 mm as abnormally large. My came in at a whopping 18 mm... yay baby, go big or go home, that's what I say. The doctor said it was huge and nasty looking. He said that he was going to get the surgeon and bring him in so that we could get it out. I called Elizabeth and told her that I had an appendicitis and that I would be in surgery soon. She, again, had about a billion questions which I couldn't answer because I hadn't talked to the surgeon. While I was on the phone with her the surgeon walked in so I said bye to the wife and talked to the surgeon. When he asked when the pain started and I said Friday his eyes got really big. "Friday?" he repeated, "normally people are in here within 12 to 24 hours complaining of pain." "After 2 days we go in assuming that the appendix has ruptured, but 5 DAYS, yeah, the appendix has ruptured." He told me that my options for surgery were either 7:00pm that night or in twenty minutes (~3:30 pm); he said he would go with the twenty minutes, so twenty minutes it was. I called wifey back and told her all that was going on and then said good bye. I gave her number to the surgeon so that he could call her when I was out. From that point things continued to move quickly and I was sent off to get ready for surgery. The last thing I remember was holding some paper work and talking to nurses, the next thing I remember was being awakened in the recovery room. They eventually moved me into my room where Elizabeth was waiting and I wiggled my way from the gurney into my bed. I was still in pain so they gave me morphine and that made it all better :) The next few days was just me recovering in the hospital and being a chatty cathy with the nurses. Out of everything that happened I would say the worse part was Wednesday afternoon. I was having some issues with emptying my bladder (I know TMI) which, apparently, isn't unusual for men after surgery on pain meds. This led them to putting in a catheter. Now, I am not sure how many men out there have had to have one put in not under any anesthesia, but let me tell you that its very unpleasant. First, my nurse was probably in her late sixties or early seventies. If anyone is going to be holding my privates it sure better be a good looking twenty year old. Anyway, the old lady put the kit on the table and took out the tube. The tube looked to be the size of a small school bus to be but they assured me that it wasn't that large. She then proceeded to shove the small school bus into my unmentionables. I am fairly certain that God did not design that part of the male anatomy to accommodate the shoving in of the empire state building. Either way, after some not so fun pain, the tube was in and my complaining for the next 12 hours commenced. I was discharged on Friday, Jan 28th and am actually feeling rather well... at least my stomach and surgery area are doing well; I still have some weird sharp pain in my shoulder (pinched nerve?), it burns when I pee, and the surgery irritated my IBS. Man, its fun being me :)

2/1/11 brrrrrrrrr

-12F. feels like -33F. brrrrr...