Tuesday, April 25, 2017

My Spots!

Christian had a fever on Sunday, but as of yesterday, he still didn't have many spots on him. Micah had spots on him before his fever. I was questioning whether he really had hands, foot, and mouth disease.

This morning he got up and said, "Look mom, I have spots on the bottom of my feet!" I looked and he had quite a few spots on his feet. He said it actually hurt a little bit to walk on them!

He has a few on his hands and on his face, but other than that, I didn't really see any anywhere else.

This confirms that Christian definitely has HFM!!

Monday, April 24, 2017

Trouble before church

We had quite the interesting morning yesterday before church.

1.  Courtney wanted to make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, which I said was fine. She hadn't made them by herself yet, so I told her to go ahead, and I would stay around if she had any questions. She was doing a great job and had everything put in. Megan walked in and both of them decided to taste the batter to see if it tasted fine. I was nursing Micah at the time and I heard, "This is DISGUSTING!!! UGH!! It tastes like salt! EWWW!!!" and they were spitting the batter into the trash can.

I asked Courtney how much salt she was supposed to put in and she responded with, "1/2 teaspoon." I asked her how much she put it and she said, "1/2 cup." I said, "WHAT?? YOU PUT IN A 1/2 CUP OF SALT??" I pretty much made her cry! I didn't quite believe her when she told me that so I had her bring me the measuring cup she used. It was the 1/2 cup. I then asked her to bring me the salt containers and she did. She had emptied the salt shaker and used even more from a salt container in the cupboard. She really did use 1/2 a cup of salt!!!

I said she only had one option and that was to throw that batter out and start over. She said, "But I worked so hard!!" She worked about 45 minutes to put that batter together, and she did not want to start over. She was also rather upset at the time!  Instead, Megan got up and made the next batter and with 45 minutes left until we had to leave for church, we finally had some yummy, salt free cookies!

2.  I am always the last person to get ready for church on Sunday mornings. Micah is usually still eating breakfast when I head upstairs, so I lay out clothes for him and Matt gets him dressed. On Sunday, I laid him out an outfit. It was a dinosaur onesie and some navy blue pants with a dinosaur on the bottom. I also laid him out some socks. 

When I got done getting ready, I walked by his room and his pile of clothes were gone, so I knew Matt got him dressed. I saw the socks I picked out still on his dresser, so I assumed Matt got another pair out of his drawer.  Matt already had him in the car when I came down, so I didn't see for sure what Matt put on him. But I laid it all out, so there shouldn't be a problem. Right??

When we got to church and Matt got him out of his car seat, my jaw dropped! They were not the clothes I had picked out!!! He had on the blue dinosaur pants, but a different navy blue onesie. They were two different colors of blue! I said to Matt, "What did you put on him??" He replied with, "The clothes you laid out." I said right back, "These aren't the clothes I laid out. What happened to his dinosaur onesie? The one that goes with these pants??" Matt said that he had that on him, but didn't think it was the right one, so he changed him. He said this navy blue onesie was also his dresser, so he thought this one was the one I wanted on him.  I said NO!!!  I was a little irate! But there was nothing I could about it. My child was going to church in mismatched clothes. Oh and his socks, Matt put on a pair that were too small.

Maybe I need to check ALL my children before they walk out the door! Even the baby!!

Another disease has made an appearance

Here is what my week has looked like:

Thursday. Micah 102 fever. Beginning of red spots. I (and my mom) diagnosed him with hands, foot, and mouth disease. 

Friday. Micah's fever was gone, but more spots were appearing. I confirmed his diagnosis with his doctor. She said it is highly contagious and to watch the other kids for it.

Saturday. Micah has more spots appearing, but he is back to normal.

Sunday. Christian had a basketball game and did not play very well. We assumed he was just being his normal stubborn self and kind of got upset at him, but once we got home around 2:30, he collapsed on the couch and said he was shivering. He had a 102 temp!!! No wonder he didn't play very well! I figured that if anybody was going to catch HFM disease from Micah, it was going to be Christian. I was pretty sure Christian was now coming down with it.

A couple of hours later, Matt said he didn't feel well. He had a sore throat and just didn't feel right.

Monday. Christian's fever is gone, and I can only see a few red spots. He might get by without many at all! Quite the opposite of Micah because he is quite spotted! 

Around 2 pm, Matt walked in from work. It is never good when he comes home early. He said he just wasn't feeling right and wanted me to look in his throat for white spots.  He opened his mouth and I said, "Yep, there's a big white spot right there on the left side." He just groaned! He said that one of is co-workers just had strep and he thought he might have it too. He left to go to the doctor and sure enough, he tested positive for strep AND an ear infection. How odd!

So I have had two cases of hands, food, and mouth disease PLUS a husband with strep throat here within the last few days. 

So far, us three girls have been clear of all of this, let's just keep it that way!!

Friday, April 21, 2017

New Disease and No Braces

Micah always keeps us on our toes around here. Yesterday I noticed he was breaking out in a few spots around his body. My first thought was that they were hives from something. We had some friends over, but I didn't get too concerned. Around 5-6 pm, he started getting warm. I took his temperature and it was 99.7! Ok, those spots are not an allergic reaction!

I called the nurse's hotline, and they didn't really say much except to call my doctor in the morning. Micah snuggled up all evening and when I put him to bed, his temperature was 101.7. He wasn't fussy or anything, so I didn't give him any Advil. As I was rocking him to sleep though, I was texting my mom and she mentioned maybe he had hands, foot, and mouth disease. Once I looked it up, I knew that was what it was! He had sores on his feet, legs, arms, hands, face, and in his mouth; he had quite a bit on his bottom too! There were none on his torso.  He had a temp and wasn't eating very well. It fit him perfectly! (I wonder why the nurse didn't think of this??)

This morning when he woke up, he was a little bit warm, but he did not have a fever like the night before. I gave him a bath and tried to be careful because there were more spots than the night before too.

I called our pediatrician's office and talked about it with them. She said it sounded like hands, foot, and mouth, and there was really not much we could do except keep him hydrated. She said it has been going around lately. It is caused by a virus, so it is highly contagious.  She said to watch the other kids, but from what I read, kids under the age of 5 are the most susceptible.  Megan had it when she was a baby, so she probably can't get it again! She said the spots will continue on for 7-10 days and he is mostly contagious while he has a fever, but 24 hours after his fever breaks, he is fine to be around others again. .

Throughout the day today, Micah has been getting better.  He is eating and drinking and acting more like himself.  Because I had a sick kid this morning, I had to reschedule my appointment to get braces! Now I need to wait another two weeks to get that done! (That is two appointments this week that I had to reschedule because of sick kids!!)



Wednesday, April 19, 2017

2 days!

I have two days left until I get braces! I still have time to chicken out!!

I think Megan is more excited than I am. She is constantly asking me what color of rubber bands I am going to get and reminding me of all the food I won't be able to eat for awhile.

I should really have jaw surgery, but after looking into that, I decided that I do not really want my jaw broke in three separate places and be wired shut for 6 weeks. The orthodontist I am going through said he could fix my teeth up to 80% without have surgery. I will take 80%!!!! I do not need 100%!

I have already had braces once in my life, so I faintly remember how much they hurt and rubbed on the inside of my cheeks. Back then, I only had 6 brackets on the top and a full set on the bottom. I am getting a full set on the top and bottom this time!!

Please everybody who has had their teeth fixed earlier in life, wear your retainers!!! My children will be wearing theirs for the rest of their lives!


Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Oh Micah!

Micah sure made us laugh the other day. It was in the morning, and I was working at the table with Megan on her Language Arts. Micah was in the living room, and he had ahold of the Fire TV remote. He knows this what we use this to play music, and he loves his music! He had it and  was acting like he was speaking into it (in order to get the music to play). I thought this was pretty harmless, but then he started pushing buttons.



The TV was on and we just thought he was being cute. At one point, I saw that he started a movie. I told Courtney to go in there and turn it off AND to take the remote away from him, which she did. She came back to the kitchen and said it was some kind of zombie movie.  A few minutes later, I heard the Dora theme song. He had the remote again and was pushing more buttons. I asked Courtney to go into there again,  take the remote away, and just turn the TV off! She did exactly as she was told and I thought the problem was done for the day.

Fast forward a couple of hours and the phone rings. It is Matt. He RARELY calls during the day, so I knew something was up. He was getting some emails from Amazon, and they said that he purchased a $14 movie and had subscribed to PBS kids for $5 a month! He asked if I knew anything about this and I said, "Not really." Then he asked if anybody was playing with the fire TV and then I knew that it was Micah!!  Our certain one year old had ordered the zombie movie and signed himself up for PBS kids!!! I could not help but to laugh!!!

Matt was looking on Amazon to see how to get a refund for "child accidently ordered movie" and it said you could only get your money back if you had not begun to stream it yet. Well, Micah had streamed it for one minute! This morning, we chatted with somebody at Amazon and they refunded our money for the movie and the PBS subscription.

After we were done getting our refund, Matt put some parental controls on our fire TV. No more ordering movies for Micah!!!


Saturday, April 15, 2017

Go to Bed, Micah!

For some reason, Micah has been out of sync lately.  Three nights ago, he didn't go to bed until 12:15 am!! The last two nights, he was up until about 10:30 pm.

I think he is just in another stage of transitioning. I am pretty sure he is weaning and just doesn't know what to do anymore. He wants to nurse, but yet he doesn't. Tonight, he wanted "milk" at four pm, so I nursed him, but he didn't really seem too interested. Around 5, he was soooo tired, but he wasn't asking for "milk," so we just tried to keep him busy. I usually nurse him when I put him to sleep, so this was odd that he wasn't begging me for more milk.

Megan and I decided that taking him for a walk to the park would be a great thing to do! We were hoping he would fall asleep in the stroller, and he almost did on the way home! But didn't fully fall asleep, so when we got home, he was still awake and cranky.

The bad part was that I needed to make supper, so I passed the crabby baby off to Matt! I told Matt that I would go feed him because by now he was giving me the milk signal, but he insisted that I cook and Micah needed to figure it out! :) He took him up to his room to play and that helped him a little. Once I fed him supper, he perked up again for awhile.

By 7:30 pm, I could tell he was ready to go to bed. I gave him a bath and we nursed. And he went to sleep!!! Hip, hip, hooray!

So why I am still up at 10:30 pm??

Another call to the allergist!

What is it with my kids and hives lately?? Now that we have Micah figured out, Megan decided to give us some trouble. :)

Hives are not new for her. She gets water hives every time she showers or gets wet. She has been doing this for about two years now and the doctor said it usually lasts 5-10 years or even her lifetime. We know this is not going away for awhile. We aren't quite sure what triggered it either.

(here is a website that explains it...)
https://www.verywell.com/water-urticaria-1068811

Lately though, the hives have been getting worse. For the longest time, they were just on her back and on her chest. They could would have a small welt in the middle and then a big red blotchy area around them. She would start to get them about halfway through her shower, and then they would all be away about ten minutes after she was out and dried off.

The other night she came downstairs when she was done with her shower and she had hives on her neck, on her face, and behind her ears! She also had a place on her back that was REALLY itchy.  The welts also looked bigger than usual and about a half an hour later, they still weren't gone.

Ok, what happened?? Why are these hives intensifying??

I called her allergist yesterday and he said to give her Zyrtec and a reflux medicine for a week to see if they will calm down.  We will start that tonight. The doctor wants us to report back in a week.

I have two theories though about why this happened.  The first theory is her braces. She has ceramic brackets, but there are two metal brackets way in the back. Since she has a metal allergy, these may be affecting her body.

She also stopped taking magnesium. She had been taking this for the longest time and now that she quit taking it, her hives are intensifying. Her eczema is also coming back on the back of her legs.

We may never know what is going on, but we do need to manage these symptoms! Poor thing!

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Just have to brag a little bit!

Ok, time to brag about Courtney now!!

She has been playing basketball with the YMCA now for three weeks. She has a coach that really wants to WIN and has actually called an extra practice during the week for Courtney and two other players.  She LOVES it!!

There are only seven girls on her team and yesterday, only four of them made it to the game.  They played against a team that had 10 girls! We thought for sure they would play four on four, but they didn't. They played five against four and Courtney's entire team played the ENTIRE game.

Guess who won??? Courtney's team!!! They beat a team that had six more players!! They did a great job!! The score was 12-8.

It is so fun to hear what people say around you. At one point, a dad of a girl on the opposing team said, "Come on, get it together, there are only four of them!!" 


I knew it!

After Micah's crazy allergic reaction last weekend, I called his allergist on Monday. Of course, they wanted me to bring him in to get allergy tested. (I kind of debated taking him because I think we can clearly say he is allergic to kiwi!)  The doctor wanted to test his kiwi, avocado, banana, and latex. Kiwi is part of the "latex fruit" family, so he ordered them all. While I was talking to the nurse, I asked if we could add on almond. I have noticed his face gets red if he drinks almond milk and he gets hives around his mouth if he eats almond butter. She said we could.

I went and got his blood drawn as he screamed. :( It was not very pleasant and he had a nice bruise to remember it by.

On Friday, the office called with his results. They said, "Well, we got the results back and the only things that showed up were almond and kiwi."

I responded with, "That is exactly what I thought."  I asked for his numbers and she said the kiwi was really high at 31.9 and his almond was at 6.88. According to this chart, his kiwi is "high and positive" and his almond is "moderately high and positive."  When we got him tested for dogs back in August, that was at 7.7. I have seen hives with almonds, kiwis, and dogs, so yes, it is positive that Micah will react!



She said that the doctor recommended have him go completely off kiwi (obviously!!!) and off all almonds and any other tree nuts because of cross-contamination.

I asked her about myself since we are still nursing. She said that they recommend all nursing moms to go off of everything too.  I didn't want to start an argument here, but I wanted to say, "I have been using almond milk  since I was pregnant with him and he has been fine."  I have noticed that if I drink it (and he gets it through my breastmilk) or if I cook with it, he is fine. If I feed him straight almond butter, he gets hives around his mouth and even on his bottom from his stool! 

But this brings up an interesting problem because I do want to wean this baby soon! What do I do when he is not getting breastmilk everyday? He can't drink cow's milk, almond milk, or rice milk. I can obviously still cook with these milks because I have been since he was born. Is he ok with getting milk from food? I mean, my other kids don't drink milk on a daily basis either, but they can at least drink smoothies and eat ice cream once in awhile. :)

So his list of allergens include cow's milk, wheat, eggs, peanuts, kiwi, tree nuts, and dogs. I have seen reactions (hives or something  else) or cow's milk, eggs, kiwi, almonds, and dogs. Could you imagine what would happen to this boy if I gave him peanuts??

And  we still don't know what caused this crazy reaction when he was 9 months old! (August 2016)


Monday, April 3, 2017

Another allergic reaction!

We found out this weekend that in addition to peanuts, wheat, eggs, milk, and dogs, Micah is now allergic to kiwi!!



The other day when we were at a grocery store, Christian saw the kiwis and wanted to buy them. After thinking about it a little bit, I agreed to get some. I had purposely not given any to Micah because for a long time because we thought he was allergic to bananas, which is a latex fruit. Kiwis are also a latex fruit, so I just avoided them.

We have been back on bananas since Christmas time and he has done well, so I bought some kiwis and thought I would try them.

Yesterday morning, I made bacon and cut up all the kiwis and served them. I gave Micah one slice and he ate it right away. Of course, he asked for more! I didn't want to give him too many because I was still leery about having a reaction. I gave him a couple more and then stopped, even though he was still begging. About this time, I could see the area around his mouth turning red and he started getting really fussy.

After he was done eating, I went and gave him a quick bath. While he was crying, I washed him up quick and when I got him on his changing table to get him dressed, I noticed a few hives on his back.  I got his diaper on him quick because he was crying pretty hard now. I gave him his blanket and I sat down in his chair in his room. About a 1-2 minutes later, he started to cough. On his second cough, he threw up right into his blanket! What in the world????

I called Matt upstairs to help and to tell him that I thought Micah was having an allergic reaction to the kiwi. It was the only thing new I had given him.

We had to get to church, so I went and took a shower and Matt kept an eye on him. He had stopped crying once he threw up, but we were still being cautious. While I was in the shower, Matt said his eyes got red and watery and his nose just ran and ran and ran. Ok, this is obviously an allergic reaction!!

Once we were all ready and Micah was walking around and laughing, we headed to church. Even after we were there, I still noticed his eyes were bloodshot and watery.  His hives had gone away and he was back to normal for the most part.

He was fine the rest of the day. Last night, I had a friend tell me that kiwi is very allergenic. She said that when she ran a daycare, they could not give kids kiwis until they were three because of allergies!

Today, I called his allergist to discuss it with him.  He wants to have Micah tested for kiwis, bananas (again!), avocados, and latex. These are the latex fruits. I asked her if we could add almonds to the list because I have noticed his face turn red and hives when he eats almonds. I wonder if these are ALL related!

Oh, and don't forget his dog allergies!!

Now I need to make time to get him to the lab to get his blood drawn. I really want to get to the bottom of all his allergies!!!