Category Archives: Illness

Basically the only thing that will slow these kids down.

Gerd, the newest member of our family.

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Okay. So here’s how it shakes down.

Porter is about this close to becoming a pharmacological poster child. I took him to the doctor this week due to a seemingly endless list of symptoms. A list that was punctuated with the item CRYING, LOTS AND LOTS OF CRYING (yes, all in caps). When the doctor asked me to explain the symptoms, I told him to get his pen ready, ’cause this was gonna take a while: teething, fluid in the ears, persistent runny nose, lack of appetite, intermittent goopy eyes, sleeplessness, throwing up, CRYING, LOTS AND LOTS OF CRYING – did you get that last one? Of the whole list, he immediately zeroed in on the one thing I have begun to take for granted – the throwing up. He said that chances are pretty high that he has GE reflux, also known by the ridiculous sounding acronym GERD. (Yes, Sharan, I know you already told me this.) He prescribed heartburn meds and said that we can probably attribute just about every item on the list, save teething, to the reflux. The remaining symptoms, he quickly surmised, are allergies. The give-away: his skin. Both of my children were lucky enough to inherit their father’s lizard skin. And in the world of relationships, apparently, eczema and allergies are like peas and carrots. With one, comes the other. And there you have it.

Final med tally: 5 [Dimetapp, Zantac, Cortizone Cream, Ibuprofin, Anti-bacterial eye drops]

…which may allow me to finally discontinue my self-prescribed med list of alcohol, caffeine and M&Ms.

The Facts

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If you are curious as to where I have been, look no further than the following two faces:

porter

stella

My little angels: dipped in a vat of adorable, sprinkled with a fine dusting of mischief, and covered with a thousand kisses of what I can only describe as emotional volatility. And as such, I could go either way with this post. And so, perhaps it will be safest to just stick to the facts.

Fact 1: Stella stopped napping a little over two weeks ago. Finito. Kaput. Nein Nap. It snuck up on me in the fashion that most things do in my role as parent of a child who, I am sure, received the child equivalent of Special Ops training. The first couple of days it was no big deal – I’d work at it for a while, then eventually let it slide, (naively) thinking that she would just catch up the next day. Then came the next day. And the next. And the next. Right around day 5 or so, I began realizing that we had moved from minor deviation, to newly entrenched routine. Just. Like. That. And so here we are, entering week 3 of my complete and utter surrender. Barring some rare planetary realignment, my only real hope at this point is going to be getting her to chill in some pre-alotted down time, the trick being that I am able to keep her contained without a padlock. (Damn fire regulations.)

Fact 2: In light of Fact 1, I ended up having to stage a protest of my own. It had to do with that tiny little 30 minute window I had managed to carve out for myself during the household naptime. Once she decided to stage her napping coup, I was all of a sudden faced with having to relinquish the one and only time, other than my shower, wherein I am guaranteed an opportunity to do something by myself, for myself. And so it was that we sat down eye to eye, and I explained that come hell or high water, I was going to exercise and she was going to play quietly, and she was NOT going to bother me unless she, the house, or Porter were on fire. And I’m not talking about little fire either – I mean the sets-the-alarm-off kind of fire. It took her about one time of interrupting me (for the highly important task of finding a puzzle piece) to learn that it was NOT the equivalent of fire.

Fact 3: Porter down-shifted from throwing up to snotty, then changed lanes to teething. Yes, everyone, he is finally getting that errant 4th bottom tooth. I even think I have glimpsed a couple of purple bulges where some of those monster-molars are in the back. Ouch. It figures that just as we seem to be rounding a corner towards some reasonable night-time sleep schedules, he is going to begin monster teething again. Whatever. Sleep is for weenies.

Fact 4: Stella has become a human juke box. Out of nowhere, her song repertoire grew from Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle to an endless array of tunes about frogs and monkeys and space and days of the week. The other night in the bathtub, she was singing me a song that invoked one of the most amazing recall moments I have ever had. As she chirped along about the 5 little monkeys swinging in the tree teasing Mr. Alligator, I (from places in my brain that I didn’t even know existed) began singing along with her – even going so far as to remember how the tempo of the song slowed down as Mr. Alligator came along as quiet as can be, and he SNATCHED that MONKEY right OUT of that TREE!

Along with the laundry list of other titles she has committed to memory, there is the days of the week song. This song has been particularly important to her because she has really begun to latch on to how each of the days has relevance to her life – with the most important ones being Friday (because it’s the one day of the week where she gets to go into Grani K’s when I pick up Porter), Saturday and Sunday (because they are not school days). Each day she asks us what day it is, and then does her best to figure out where it lies in proximity to the High Holy Day of Friday. So, you can imagine how excited I was when she stopped singing this song as Thursday-Thursday,Thursday-Thursday, Thursday-Thursday, Thurrrsdayyyyyyy.

Fact 5: Porter is almost walking. This video isn’t all that great, but it gives a pretty good visual on his drunken-like stagger, and lack of any speed or direction control. Mostly he just plows forward as quickly as possible until he runs into something. He is a boy, is he not? At least that is what I am constantly reminded of each time I open his diaper and he does a man-jewels check. Yup, still there.

Fact 6: Each day, my life inches one step closer to maximum capacity. You tell me the time of day, and I can tell you exactly where I am. 7:24 am? I’m at the intersection of E & Buhne. 12:24 pm? I’m passing the homeless guy right by the Tomo Cafe. 3:24 pm? Surveying the fridge to make sure we have all the ingredients for dinner. 8:24 pm? Deciding whether I am going to sit down at the computer to make a blog post or go to bed. And round and round it goes.

Fact 7: There is no amount of busy or hectic that could ever outweigh the fun, the silly, the cute, the lovable. It’s a fact.

Sick and Tired of Sick and Tired

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Let’s recap, shall we?

My mother arrived a week ago, Thursday. By Sunday, Porter began throwing up more than usual. Monday, he threw up in the middle of the night. Although no other symptoms existed, we began to suspect the flu. Tuesday, we kept him out of daycare. Wednesday morning, Steve began asking me if I thought the house felt cold. Wednesday afternoon, Steve’s parents arrived, Steve puked, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening under 600 blankets. Wednesday night, Stella slept at the trailer with her Grammy and Gramps, and threw up in the middle of the night. By Thursday, everyone seemed to be feeling a bit better. Porter was still throwing up with some regularity, and added diarrhea to his list of tricks. We all of a sudden realized that we needed to go to Costco to pick up more laundry detergent because we had been doing a minimum of 3 loads of laundry every day for 6 days. On Saturday, Steve’s dad spent the better part of the day holding court in the bathroom and on the couch. After being urgently booted from the bathroom by Stella – the girl with ZERO understanding that anyone else’s needs might outweigh her own- he opted to move himself to the trailer to convalesce. We were reminded, for the gazillionth time, that we need a second bathroom.

Although our house is wall-to-wall wood floors, Porter somehow managed to throw up three separate times on the thick shag area rug in the living room. The carpet cleaners come tomorrow at 1:00. After receiving yet another donation from Porter this morning, I attempted to wash our puke covered, king-size down comforter in the washing machine this afternoon. A tip for anyone who might try this in the future: when you have to brace yourself on the cabinets and use your foot to shove the entirety of the item into the machine, it is a good indicator that you may have exceeded capacity. It is currently sitting by the back door in an over-sized contractor bag along with about 10 gallons of water. Stella will be making her first official trip to a laundromat this evening.

Today, as I changed Porter’s outfit for the umpteenth time, and realized that although he has thrown up either in or on his shoes about 6 times, there is no point in buying him a new pair until I am relatively certain he won’t be filling the new ones with regurgitated bananas. And due to the mounting feeling that if I have to clean up puke one more time I am going to lose it, I made myself list the ways that it all could be worse. Remarkably, even with all that Porter has been going through over the last week, he has a.) not had a fever, b.) kept enough fluids in his system to not dehydrate, and c.) been in a remarkably good mood. Oh, and d.) I have set a new speed record in changing a crib sheet, in the dark, while not waking the sibling sleeping 5 feet away. Need I go on?

I guess that probably gets you up to speed on the gist of things, and also lends some explanation to my absence of late. More than anything, though, I’m just hoping that when the realtor comes over on Friday to help us set a list-price on our house, that the overwhelmingly foul smell of bodily fluids will have subsided.

Rhymes with Duke

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These last weeks have been about 7 varieties of crazy. The new year has been good, but it is foolish to think our lives were actually going to be calm. Our consecutive hours of sleep number has been improving (on a good night, we can eek out about 7 or 8). But, both children refuse to sleep past 5:30am, like EVER. Stella has also recently come to the conclusion that our cumulative household napping hours are being fulfilled by Porter, and has given me no end of grief in refusing to take her afternoon nap. We tend to live and die by our daily schedule, so when it is disrupted, the whole system begins to erode at an exponential pace. And, no matter how hard we try, some part of the system inevitably gets corrupted, leaving us to face the aftermath. Most nights we reach our fever pitch right about dinner time. Watching us try to complete our evening meal is like watching one of those old British comedies where everyone runs around at double speed bonking each other on the head with clubs. That, and throw in some crying.

Of our two children, it usually works out that one tends to run us through the emotional obstacle course,while the other works the physical angle. Stella has been going through difficult, yet completely typical, growing pains at school, and we are pulling out every trick in the book to keep her on track. Let’s just say that the sticker chart has lost it’s appeal and we are now moving onto Plan B. I’ll let you know when we figure out what that is.

Porter, on the other hand, has, in the last 48 hours, treated us to three rounds of puking and one round of explosive diarrhea. The puking part isn’t actually all that new, but the diarrhea was, well, it was just a special treat.

Although the diarrhea was a little perplexing, the puking part was less of an “Oh My God!” and more of a “Ugh! Not Again!” We have actually had intermittent spells of puking with Porter for about the last 4 months or so. At least, that is when we considered it no longer ‘spitting up’ but rather ‘throwing up’. (For those who are wondering about the exact distinction between the two, I have one word: chunks.) Although we have done our best to figure out some cause and effect, we have been stumped. He’ll sometimes go weeks without so much as a cough, but then will, all of a sudden and out of nowhere, shower us with his lunch three days in a row.

There was a day a couple of months back where even Stella became a victim to Porter’s trademark firehose of barf. As I was trying to maneuver him from the dining room to the changing table, we left a virtual river of spew from one room to the next. As Stella emerged from the bedroom after her nap, I was still trying to wrangle McGoo out of his clothes. She rounded the corner into my bedroom and immediately slipped in one of the puddles, falling awkwardly to the floor. As she tried standing up, she slipped again. I felt like we were all three trapped in an episode of I Love Lucy.

I mentioned all of this to the pediatrician at Porter’s last appointment, but my details were spotty and lacking in any meaningful insight other than, “he seems to throw up a lot.” I just can’t imagine how she couldn’t come up with a diagnosis based on my meaningful description of symptoms. Instead, we had had to go this one alone – gathering data the way the early pioneers did – with a crayon and a bar napkin. At this point, we have observed that, 1.) each time he throws up he has just had a bottle, 2.) the bottle was given to him within a couple hours after a meal, 3.) he never shows any other symptoms of illness, and 4.) he is ready to eat again pretty quickly afterwards, and never with any ill effects.

Thusly, we have ruled out food poisoning or flu. Instead, our hypothesis at this point is that Porter’s “I’m Full” sensor is on the blink. You know, that little voice that we all have in the back of our subconscious that says things like, “Please step AWAY from the cheesecake.” His seems to be there sometimes, while other times it turns into the cheering crowd at a hot dog eating contest, “One More! One More! One More!” It is always shocking to both Steve and I how much actually comes back up. We look at one another as if to say “did you secretly take him to an all-you-can-eat buffet?”

And so it shall be that we will commence with operation Rhymes with Duke.

Sleep Journal: Day 209

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Poor little McGoo. He has been teething for going on eleventeen weeks now. The bottom front two came in with little fanfare, however he is on the 10-year plan in getting those heinous two top fronts and their side-by-sides. It started weeks ago and just seems to be dragging on, and on, and on. And on. Not only is he carrying a consistent dosage of some variety of pain reliever in his system at all times (we are thinking it would be more efficient to just switch to a Tylenol patch), but he is still holding out on this whole sleep thing. As in, he won’t. Throw in the time-change, and a house with bad acoustics, and you have a reason to drink. A lot. As I explained to my mother-in-law, there is a moment each evening, wherein I have to either drink alcohol or caffeine, or I’ll die.

Aside from the whole teeth-and-sleep thing, otherwise known as the OBVIOUS IMPLICATIONS UNDERTAKEN WHEN PROCREATING, there is the fact that he is this close to crawling in a direction other than backward or sideways. Right now, his best trick is getting himself wedged under things. Where’s Porter? Oh, under the couch again. Hear Porter crying in the next room? No biggie, he has probably just scooted himself under an open drawer again. Oh, you left him in his crib to play for a while? That’s fine, except he has most-likely wriggled both of his legs through the slats – ultimately pinning himself, yet again. One might call it his super-power – being able to wedge himself in the most unlikely of places…which should come in handy as he tries to flee future abuses at the hands of his n’er-do-well older sister.

Add to this scenario a snot-clogging, wheeze-making, even-less-sleep-getting cold, and I have no choice but to blog about it.

But here’s the thing: Through all of this insanity, and chaos, and potential for me to rue the day I ever considered having unprotected sex, I can still manage to break a genuine smile when it is 4:30 in the morning and I see Porter’s little profile in shadow, hear him make that funny Frankenstein noise and realize that I am, indeed, up for the day. Again.