One of these things is not like the other...

One of these things just isn't the same...



Please notice my children sitting like little lumps on the couch (they are watching Scooby Doo, if you must know). Also notice that they are ALL wearing glasses. The third thing you will not remember if you've ever met my children or followed my blog is my children ever wearing glasses other than in a sunglasses fashion sense.

Today was the last day of our first quarter break and we set out to the mall to accessorize with whatever monies they had left from their piggy banks. On the top of each of their list was a pair of fashion glasses.




Why there is a fashion that includes real LOOKING glasses eludes me. As a long time glasses sufferer...it's just not a fashion I can wrap my head around. I mean there are really cute little fake glasses out there...but I spent my childhood being called four-eyes and fearless fly (thanks Dad) and having people ask why the doctor didn't at least scrape the word "coke" off the bottle before he put my lens in the frames...who CHASES that kind of joy? ALL THREE OF MY CHILDREN.

So we were on our way to the mall this morning so that they could BUY some fake fashion glasses...But we had a slight hiccup. Something happened other than what we planned.

I have suspected for a while that Miss Bean might need glasses. I've worn glasses since I was 7...that's 32 years to hone my "I-think-you-need-glasses-radar"...but she was a weird case. She doesn't squint or rub her eyes excessively like others I've seen...she just really REALLY doesn't like to read. She does it fine. But she has some weird reversals and stuff. About 3 weeks ago, I knew we had to at least CHECK. She was having a really hard time with comprehension in her new science book unless she was reading aloud...

So I started researching insurance stuff, cuz of course it changes year to year. But I had made NO plans as of this morning. This morning we were going to the MALL not the eye doctor.

But guess what, there was an eye doctor in the mall that I just happened to know was on my new insurance...and it was one of those can-have-your-lenses-in-about-an-hour places...so we ended up with not one but TWO eye appointments. Both Bean and Bear got their eyes checked. And sure enough...Beanie needed a prescription.

The eye doctor also thought she saw something wrong with Beanie's eye so she dilated them. So pretty...sorry the lighting is so bad...I tried it a couple different ways and just couldn't get it to show HOW big her pupils were.



Turns out she also has a cataract in there. They are unsure exactly WHY it's there...possibly it's been there since birth or some injury (although I can't think of one)...so we'll be watching it but it doesn't affect her vision. If you feel like praying that it's nothing, I'd appreciate it.

Her prescription is really just for reading and it's not corrected as far as it will be, but the Doctor thought it would be better to work her up to her full prescription over six months or so.

The silver lining is, of course, Beanie didn't have to spend her money on fake fashion glasses...she got the REAL ones that mommy took care of...and they are still pretty cute...and they are green which is a huge plus for my girl right now. They are WAY cuter than my coke bottle ones of the late 1970's and early 1980's even IF my glasses had a cute kitty cat sticker...and WAY lighter...those coke bottle bottoms are HEAVY.

Her sisters still bought the fake ones. I think getting glasses might just be easier when your sisters get some too...besides she gets to say things like, "Mine are REAL and yours are just for dress up." which is ever so endearing...

So here she is with her new beautiful glasses...huh, I guess you CAN see the dinner plate sized pupils in this shot...



She's pretty happy about them and can't wait to tell her friends...I'm pretty happy to have it done, even though it made for a really long day.

Hazaar for our newest Fearless Fly...

See ya around...

PPPFFFFFFffffffftttttttt.........

I'm having a bit of a grouch attack...

Beanie's staph rash is fabulous...she's still got some scars that are trying to get new skin...but she went back in the pool Thursday...Great, right? Of course right.

HOWEVER, she got up this morning with a pretty major rash...kinda bumpy, heat rash looking thing on her face and arms and legs...seems not to be on her trunk.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! AND BOTHER!

Well, I'm running under the assumption that this is a reaction to the antibiotic...I suppose it COULD be chicken pox or measles, but the rash-free-trunk seems to say, "Nah"...that and the fact this is my vaccinated kid, as opposed to my kid that was allergic to her vax.

AND, of course...it's SATURDAY! SATURDAY! BAH!

To those of you without children...Saturday means that if she truly needs medical attention we are on our way to the E.R. Ever had to take a child with an unknown illness to the E.R.? It lands on the unpleasant scale somewhere between licking a slimey pig nose and biting into something you thought was whipped cream and discovering it was actually rotten milk curds...it's NOT a good time.

At this moment...she is lazing on the couch. I gave her a little Benedryl to see what happens and I'm monitoring her...and everyone else again.

I told my mom that she MIGHT want to stay quarantined in her room for awhile...She's trying to leave next week to go see my brothers in Florida. Hey S&J, you want her now?? One word...INCUBATION. And no, I'm not TRYING to keep her, I swear.

Anyway...so in case you were wondering what was going on...that's it...we're stuck in the house AGAIN. PPPPPPpppppFFFFFFFffffffft.

P.S. Bubba just walked in from the gym...I showed him Miss Bean. Want to know what his first words were? "BUT IT'S SATURDAY...what are you getting sick on SATURDAY for?" (then he noogied her...)


See ya around...maybe.

Update on The Kid...

Well, you will be pleased to hear that she is on the mend.

She still had a pretty good fever on Wednesday morning...around 100...which for this particular child is huge, I can count on one hand the number of times in her life she's RUN a fever. By about noon, I could tell she was starting to feel better because she was getting bored and emotional. By lunch time we'd had two unwarranted crying jags and several bouts of sheer crabbiness.

At quiet time my suggestion to "lie down and rest your widdle head" was met with fierce grumbling and then complete SILENCE when she pretty much passed out. I love when I'm right.

By the time I changed her bandages for the second time that day at around 6pm, I was pretty sure her temperature was down and her rash looked like it was responding. I won't say it looked "better" exactly, because, well, ick...but it was darkening and seemed drier. I'll put these in small in deference to those that just don't need to see them...if you want to look more closely, click on the image and it will take you to a larger shot.



Here she is all bandaged up for the night...you'll notice the smile. This is one of the first we'd seen since about Sunday afternoon, so TRY not to notice her hair...she's very irritated that I took her picture with her hair that way.



There was one little bump in the "worry" road. When Bubba and I got home from our weekly Care Group, Grandma said that Beanie thought she could feel blisters forming on her lower lip. YIKES. When I looked at her, it looked like she might be right. But prayers were going up and the antibiotic was working and we found in the morning that her lips were only chapped as could be expected in one coming off an off-again on-again fever of 4-5 days.

When we took off the bandages Thursday morning, there were even more signs that the antibiotic was working and we were on the right path...darker, dryer rash, most of the blisters either reduced or broken and dry...etc.



You can see in her eyes that she's feeling better...so good to see the twinkle again.



Thursday afternoon we went to see our Beloved Dr. B. She was very happy to see the progress and be assured that this WAS the right antibiotic even though the scraping was not back from the lab. When we told her that Beanie really was not eating, she asked us a few questions regarding her tummy and agreed that we should back off on one of the herbals to see if her appetite improved. However, as long as she wasn't sick to her stomach or having any other issues in that department we'll start that back up in a few days. Then she told us to keep the bandages OFF! Beanie was SO happy with that...she just hates them during the day. There was one caveat, she has to wear gloves when playing with the Wii remote but only because her sister is still a thumb-sucker...the rest of us are out of the woods with regard to "catching" it from casual touch.

Our Beloved Dr. B says that Bean could go into the pool as early as one week from yesterday, but that a couple more days of immune system building would not be a bad idea. Which also means, we should be able to go to church and other types of social contact very soon. YAY! I REALLY could get out of the house...it'd be okay with me.

I didn't get any pictures of the rash last night...but after several hours of being OUT of the bandages it looked even better. It looks like the rash itself will recede and only leave behind the spots of scabs where blisters actually broke open...there are still plenty of those...but the overall redness is fading...

Here she is after being bandaged for the night last night. Those bandages are only there to keep the ointment on...she was told that if she WANTED to take them off in the night (after 10pm) she could. Her grandma told her that she looked like she had her hands taped up so she could box...so she threw us a fight-face pose...



Scary, indeed.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and good thoughts...we've all needed to hear them...

See ya around...

Staph...

Yesterday I posted on Facebook that we'd had an Emergency appointment with a Dermatologist for Beanie and I've gotten a few questions wondering how she's doing. Turns out she has a pretty good staph infection that until yesterday was just spreading...it started on the hand where she usually gets eczema and has spread to the other hand, her inner elbow and yesterday up into her hairline.

On Monday, I called to make an appointment for the Dermatologist (Thursday), and for our Naturopath who got me in right away. The Naturopath thought there may be an underlying parasite issue, but that I needed to get to a dermatologist because whatever was on top was WAY beyond what he was comfortable treating and he was glad to know the appointment had been made. I love that my Naturopath knows his own limits and makes sure I know it...no "God" complex in that one.

When Beanie woke with a spot of this in her hair yesterday (Tuesday) I called the Dermo and said, "Either get me in or I'm headed to ER"...so we got in at 10am. She was NOT particularly friendly or helpful...she took one look at this MASSIVE rash and said "oh that's infected, it's just contact dermatitis" ...during the 4-5 minutes she spent with us, she didn't want to hear anything, not that Beanie had eczema, not that she had an active fever and had for 2 days, not that she had been in a swim meet with a bunch of kids 9 days before, but hadn't been in the pool since...not when I noticed it getting WORSE than standard eczema...not what I'd tried...as a matter of fact to everything I said, she would interrupt and say, "I'm sure that aggravated it"...the best example was me saying, "She was in a swim meet" the doctor interrupts saying, "I'm sure that aggravated it" and me saying "But she hasn't BEEN in the pool in over a week"...but she did it with the cream we've always used for her eczema, the band-aids etc.

At some point she FINALLY said the word "infection" again...and I jumped on it, "What type of infection, bacterial or viral" and she FINALLY said, "Probably staph". I'm sorry, "probably staph"? Like it's no big deal this thing that is taking over my kid's body. She said that she was prescribing a heavy antibiotic but no real explanation of anything. I said, "Are there side effects I should watch for?" she said "It could make her sun-sensitive". I said, "Should I give her Probiotics?" she said "That's probably not necessary"...WHAT? Anyone else think that sets off an alarm? I asked her when I should look for there to be a change for the better? She said 3-4 days (this is VERY important in hind-site) and that she would want to see us in 2 weeks. (another VERY important thing.)

So she gave us this prescription and left the room...at the reception desk it occurred to me there were 3 prescriptions and no explanation of timing or wound care and I still didn't know if I should put band-aids or gauze on her so I made the nurse call her back. She said that I could and then left again.

Well I got home. I was perplexed. I do NOT just give my kids stuff cause the doctor says I should, and ESPECIALLY a doctor that didn't even WEIGH my kid before handing me an antibiotic that by all "google" accounts is a liver killer. So because I am who I am...I called my most beloved Pediatrician.

Dr. B has proven herself once again.

She actually WEIGHED Beanie, took her temperature and took a scraping to send to the lab to confirm what on EARTH this is (very scary to a little girl who hurts so much, but not painful because Dr. B is awesome-oh, and not something the Dermo bothered to do) and talked us through the entire protocol...including the use of this scary antibiotic...EXACTLY what to look for with side effects...how to clean and bandage the wounds because make no mistake, Beanie is WOUNDED right now...how to lessen the chances of anyone else picking it up...and how to lessen Bean's chances of the after effects of this kind of antibiotic.

And get this...she INSISTS on seeing us in two days...wanna see why?

I'm only going to show you one part of the rash...the most DRAMATIC part...this is her elbow on Sunday afternoon and again on Tuesday morning...just to give you a clue how fast this is spreading...



It didn't start looking worse than her standard eczema until about Thursday and it stayed on that one hand in that localized spot until Saturday. Once it started moving there was no slow down...with it moving THIS fast waiting 3-4 days to call the Dermo MIGHT just be too late to save her face. But obviously the Dermatologist wasn't interested, based on her answers to my question.

What's more, I gave the prescription to Dr. B just to tell me how to use it. She said, "You know what, you couldn't have even gotten this filled...there is no dosage information on it." Well of course there wasn't, they didn't weigh her, how could they figure dosage?

So I've just kept the prescription for my records. I'm not sure that I'll ever do anything with it, but I'm praying about it. I don't want to do anything right now, because I'm mad. And the reality is that the Dermo DID prescribe the right drug so technically she was right...but it was useless to me until someone was able to explain what to do with it and could dose it properly.

As for Beanie. She doesn't feel good and she's still running a fever so she is NOT BETTER yet. But nothing looks worse for the first time since Saturday and the rash on her elbow looks darker, like it's trying to scab and her hands are not quite as swollen. We have an appointment with Dr. B Thursday afternoon. Maybe the scraping will be back but at the very least we should be able to see if we are on the right path BEFORE the weekend...an important feature for all worried Mommas everywhere.

So that's the update for the time being.

Please keep us in your prayers...

See ya around...