Pneumonia

Yesterday evening Maryam started coughing pretty bad. All day she didn't want much to eat so I had a feeling she was getting sick. I was right. Last night she didn't sleep well and this morning she was running a temp.
This evening we took her to the ER because ahe was getting much worse. The neb treatments weren't working, her emergency inhaler wasn't having much of an affect either. During her afternoon nap she was breathing so fast that I counted 170 breaths a minute. That's when we decided to take her to the ER.
When she got in her fever was sown a little to 99.8 but her O2 sats were only 88% on room air.
She was given O2 immediately. Chest x-rays were ordered and confirmed pneumonia in her upper right lobe. Because she needs O2 she's being admitted. Right now Brett and I are following her ambulance transport. She's on the way to a Kaiser facility where they have her entire medical history.
I'll try updating more as more information becomes available to me. Keep her in your thoughts and prayers.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Ulcer? Really?

So, on Friday morning I called Maryam's GI doc to find out if we could bring her in for examination. Her button was hurting her even more than it had been. His day was already over booked so he couldn't see her. But he was very concerned that Maryam was in pain so he suggested that we take her in to see her pediatrician. His plan was to have the pediatrician examine her and call him. When we got to Dr. Mohan's office she wanted us to take the button out to see how it looked. This process is USUALLY nothing, Maryam doesn't pay attention, it takes only a few seconds to deflate the balloon and pop the button out. However Friday, the minute I put the syringe in the valve to deflate the balloon, Maryam started bawling. She was trying to defend her tummy, she cried and she tried to squirm out of my arms. She was VERY upset. Dr. Mohan was shocked by this and noted that Maryam has never reacted this way to her button. While the button was out we fiddled with her stoma and that caused her to cry even more. We were trying to figure out where the source of the pain was coming from.
We put the button back in and Dr. Mohan went to call Maryam's pediatric GI doc. When she came back she told us that they recommend that we head to the ER. That they want to "rule out anything surgical". I kid you not, just by hearing those 4 words my head started to spin. The last thing Maryam needs is another freakin' surgery! Well Brett and I wanted to avoid having to take her to the ER so we were brainstorming to see if there was anything else we could do.
We took the button out again so Dr. Mohan could culture it for infection and again Maryam started bawling. I asked her if this was your kid, what would you do? And she said she'd take her to the ER. So, off to the ER we went. I get why they wanted us to go, it just sucked, ya know?
We got to the ER over an hour later and we were seen right away. They did some blood work to rule out an abscess or any other infection. That was not pleasant. Maryam screamed as soon as she saw the syringes.....great, she's learned. She had a few x-rays of her tummy to see if maybe the button was placed wrong, or see if they could see anything on the inside near the button.
The ER doc called up to Maryam's GI doc after all the tests were done and they determined that Maryam has an ulcer in her stomach near where the Mic-key button goes in. She was prescribed a medication to take 3 times/day for over 30 days. It has to be taken at least 1 hour before eating or 2 to 3 hours after eating.
She's not better yet. Her retching is out of control. She woke herself up from her nap yesterday with all of her retching. She's still very sensitive and defensive of her button. She touches it and points at it and says "booboo owie". I haven't noticed that weird smell coming out of her tummy, which is good, but we did see dried up blood Saturday night when we took her clothes off to give her a bath.
Hopefully this medication does the trick. G-tubes suck.

To go or not to go, that is the question

I guess we decided against going to the ER for now. We're just going to monitor her from home and if we absolutely have to expose her to the ER then we will. Other wise we're just going to go see her doctor tomorrow.

The aftermath...

The stitch.

Maryam is in good spirits, per usual. She went to bed early, consequently, she woke up early! 5AM EARLY! I was up with her until 6:30AM when I asked Brett to take over. His idea of taking over? Putting her in bed with us and falling back to sleep. She in turn fell asleep as well. So, it was a BRILLIAN idea!
Other than looking pale, having a bruise on her left cheek and a stitch on her right temple, Maryam looks great! She's playing normally, making all the noises she usually makes and acting normal. I have noticed if I'm just a little bit late on giving her the Tylenol or Motrin her temperature goes back up and she gets REALLY fussy. So, I'm going to keep the regimin going until the temperature stays down. Poor little punkin.

The Great Valentine's Day Disaster of 2008

We were planning to go to dinner tonight for V-day. I went to print up instructions on feeds/meds for my parents to watch Maryam. I'm gone 2 minutes when I hear the O2 tank fall, Brett yell "Oh shit", and Maryam start screaming. Her O2 tank fell on her face leaving her with a cut on her left eye, a bruise on her left cheek and a hole, yes a HOLE on her right side temple! Happy Freakin' Valentine's Day, right? So, we go to the ER where the doc tries to glue her HOLE shut before deciding a stitch will be necessary. She didn't want to do an MRI because Maryam's skull felt fine, no soft spots, and she was acting normal. The doctor figured that she's been exposed to more than her share of radiation so far in her life, why expose her to more? I don'thave an opinion as long as she's fine. So far, she seems fine. I'm not, I'm totally shaken up over it. I just can't believe something else happened to her. And it makes me terribly sad that it was something avoidable.
Apparantly when you run into the ER and tell the registration person that you have an infant with a head injury who is bleeding, they get you in right away. We were in and out in about an hour and a half. I was so nervous to take her though. She has pneumonia. The last thing she needs is to be sitting in an ER with a bunch of sick people. There was only 2 people in the waiting room and when we got in there were only 5 beds being used. And fortunately the doc came to see Maryam in less than 5 minutes of entering the ER. We told her what happened and that she had just been diagnosed with pneumonia two days ago (TOTALLY NOT MARYAM'S WEEK) the doc questioned why she wasn't in the hospital. When I told her that our doc thinks its safer keeping her out of the hospital as long as the antibiotics were working she looked at me like I was insane. And said, "that's an interesting approach." What the heck does that mean? Like I'm not stressed out enough?
When we got home she wanted to sleep. We kept her up another hour or so then layed her down in bed. She fell asleep right away. We were told to wake her up once during the night to make sure we are able to wake her. Then we are to check her extremities and her awareness of us.
Happy Valentine's Day, I hope yours was less stressfull than ours.