In Which We Head To The Doctor

The area around Connor's g-tube was really red and sore today, and the antibiotic ointment we've been putting on it just doesn't seem to be doing the trick.  So I made him an appointment at the doctor's office this afternoon to take him in and get a culture done to check for infection. 

While we were there, I went ahead and got my flu shot and also a Hep A and Hep B vaccination, which is recommended for those who travel to Thailand.  They'd also like me to get a typhoid vaccine, but the doctor's office is out of it right now.  My arm is pretty sore right now-- I think with the second needle they hit a nerve or something because my arm started spasming, which was pretty weird to watch.

Connor hasn't had his flu shot yet, but we didn't want to get it today because if he started running a fever afterwards we wouldn't be sure if it was from the shot or the possible infection.  On Monday I should hear back from his doctor about whether or not the little guy just has an irritated g-tube site or if there really is something else going on there.  Once we know for sure what's going on there I'll take him back to get one so we can avoid the bug.  The fewer illnesses he gets this winter, the better!

~Jess

In Which Connor Gets Riled And We're Excited About It

Connor wasn't feeling well today; he threw up at school and again on the way home, so I canceled his physical therapy and took him home.  I suspect he might have a yeast infection starting around his g-tube; it's been red for a while and the over-the-counter antibiotics don't seem to be helping.  So I'll be calling the doctor tomorrow morning to see if I can get him in. 

For the most part, Connor has been doing wonderfully in recent days.  As we continue to go down on his medication he seems to be slowly waking up.  A couple of days ago Jeremy sang him his usual goodnight song, and Connor requested another song.  When Jer told him he'd get another song tomorrow he went into a full-blown pouting session, told him that he was "sad" and once again demanded more music.  Jer told him again that he'd get another song tomorrow, and he actually got mad and starting arguing with his daddy in sign.  "No!  Want Daddy music!" 

Jer and I were delighted.

I know it sounds strange that we'd be happy about our kid being so obstinate over something, but here's the deal: Connor doesn't usually get that worked up about anything-- certainly not enough to pout or argue about it.  He kind of embodies the Thai concept of ไม่เป็นไร, or "mai bpen rai," which literally translates to "no is nothing."  A greatly simplified explanation would be that it means to go with the flow and not let anything bother you.  While this is great in theory, Connor takes it a bit too far; it's extremely difficult to motivate him to work for anything because if a toy he wants is just out of reach or he has to do something even slightly difficult to get what he wants, he loses all interest. 

So it's great to see him really engaging with the world enough to get angry and argue when something he wants isn't happening.  And he's answering questions again rather than just ignoring me when I'm talking to him; through a series of yes/no questions today he was able to tell me that his g-tube site was itchy and sore.  Being able to give me that kind of information about how he's feeling is so amazing and wonderful because (as long as I can figure out which questions to ask) he can let me know what's wrong so we don't get into a situation like we did last winter.

And I love finding out more about what's going on inside that little corn-silk covered head of his.  He's been very carefully puckering and giving me little kisses lately, which absolutely melts my heart.  It's first new skill he's picked up in a long time, and it's something I never expected would happen.  The first few times I wasn't sure if it was deliberate or not, but now I can get kisses on request-- provided he's not ticked at me about something!  I think it's a pretty fantastic new skill to have. 

That's my boy!

~Jess

In Which We Go To The Doctor And Treat All The Things

Feeling better already!

Never fear, dear readers!  Connor is fine.  It's my computer that needed a major overhaul this time-- I got the dreaded Blue Screen of Death yesterday due to a virus so in lieu of blogging I worked on fixing the issue.  I'm pretty sure I've fixed the problem, but if you start getting e-mails from me asking you to send money to an address in Nigeria be sure to let me know, okay? 

Anyway, we came back from the little guy's appointment yesterday with a new antibiotic (Zithromax) and a referral to see the GI doctor.  Apparently he had a possible skin infection, and with all the throwing up he's been doing Connor's primary care manager was concerned that he might have a respiratory bacterial infection thanks to inhaling formula.  Evidently breathing formula is not very good for your lungs for some reason.  Who knew?

So the Zithromax should take care of those issues and whatever other crazy bacterial things he might have going on, but it probably won't have an effect on the throwing up he's been doing-- hence the GI referral.  Because Connor only seems to be throwing up when he's in a seated or standing position and not at all while he's lying down, the doctor thought it might have to do with either his g-tube or the position of Connor's intestines. 

He had intestinal malrotation when he was born that they did surgery to correct, and it's not out of the realm of possibility to think that things might have shifted around in there a little as he's grown and slowed his digestive track down.  We don't think he has an obstruction or anything-- which would be a medical emergency-- but his intestines might be moving things slowly enough that his whole system is backing up.  So we'll go into the GI doc and see what he has to say about the little guy.  Hopefully we'll find a good solution to the issue!

So yeah, basically it was yet another one of those "Connor has three separate issues and they're all hitting him at the exact same time" things.  I swear his immune system must forget to lock the door after the first one gets in or something.  It's nuts.

There's a brick pathway in there. . . somewhere.

Anyway, that was yesterday.  By this evening Connor's skin rash already looked noticeably better, his fever was gone, he'd had no seizures and he had quite a bit more energy, which is a good sign.  By tomorrow afternoon he shouldn't be contagious anymore and we'll actually be able to leave the house again, which I am extremely excited about even if I will have to take six outfits along to do it so we can stay in clean clothes while we're out.  I haven't had to do nearly as much laundry in the past couple of days because after the third or fourth time he threw up I just left him in a diaper.  Who knows-- maybe after a day or two with the other bugs gone his system will get moving again and he won't go through quite so many clothes. 

At the very least I need to get outside and do some work on the deck and the garden; because of all the rain we've had recently the plants are going crazy out there.  Beds need to be weeded, the lawn needs to be mowed, and plants need to be hacked and tied back and more or less confined back in their beds instead of sprawling out all over everything.  While I do love a glorious tangle, I need my herb garden pathway clear enough that I can get to the herbs without stepping over or on a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers rioting out of their boundaries.

  The borage in particular is reseeding like crazy in places it should not be, but I'm perfectly fine with that because I can pull up the whole plant and use it to make a very tasty tea.  I just need to get on it before my whole herb garden is one giant patch of borage.

I need to finish cleaning the deck so I can stain it-- if the weather will cooperate.  I need at least three days of sunshine to dry it out before I can restain, and I'm hoping we'll get that a bit later in the week.

I'll just be happy to get outside again to enjoy the garden.  Despite all the work I need to do there are a few beds that actually look lovely right now and in a few years will hopefully be just the mysterious, glorious kind of tangle that I so enjoy in places that aren't my herb garden!

~Jess

Part of the wet shade garden off the deck-- my current favorite!

In Which Connor Creates More Drama And I Get Some Relax Time

So the good news is that Connor does not have an infection on his arm.  It actually looked better this morning once the top layer of skin all peeled off.  The doctor thinks he probably had a reaction to the tape they used on his arm when they put the IV in there on Tuesday.  So apparently now my kid is also allergic to medical tape or something.  Oh well; at least he doesn't have cellulitis.

The bad news is that he had a seizure at the doctor's office, and by the time we visited the pharmacy at the Target across the street and headed home he'd had two more.  His temperature was barely elevated at the doctor's office-- around 99 degrees-- but when I took his temp when we got home he read 101.2, which is when I pulled out the Tylenol.

He had five seizures total by the end of the day.  Once the Tylenol kicked in his temperature went back down to just above normal, so at least it's doing its job well.  But to make sure this isn't an issue stemming from the outpatient procedure Connor had, we have to go back in to see that doctor tomorrow morning.  Whee! 

I did feel quite a bit better today despite all of the seizure-and-fever-fun, because Jer, knowing how stressed I've been, gave up his gym time and kicked me out of the house when he got home.  I tootled around a craft store, had a cup of chai and sat with a book for a while, and played around in a home decor store stealing ideas for throw pillows that I could do with felt.  It was lovely to get the chance to just relax and play around for a while; I badly needed the break. 

Jer is awesome like that.

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Heading Back To The Doctor Again

Well, it looks like we're heading back to the doctor's office again tomorrow.  I'll be calling at six in the morning to try and get a same-day appointment.  We've been putting ointment on Connor's arm for five days now but it's becoming increasingly angry looking.  Not only is it really red and sore looking, but the skin is starting to peel up too.  Not good.  If we can't get him an appointment, I'll probably be taking him into urgent care or the emergency room.  I suspect this is a deeper infection than the impetigo we dealt with previously, and I don't think this is something we can wait on. 

The kid is definitely feeling punky; it was a glorious sunny day today and we decided to take him out to the park.  He lasted through our walk around the trail and then fell asleep on the swing.  So we took him home.  We couldn't have been there more than fifteen minutes-- it was probably the shortest park trip we've ever taken.  We put him down for a nap and the kid just crashed.  Thankfully he's not running a fever, but he's not his usual happy self.

The past three months have been incredibly hard on this kid, and the stress is starting to take a toll on me too.  He usually has a tougher time during the winter months, but nothing like this.  I'm starting to have more trouble sleeping at night because I'm worried about him, and that's never a good thing.  I felt really stiff and ungainly on my skates at roller derby practice tonight, and I think it's because I'm so uptight right now. 

I'm going to try and schedule a massage soon and maybe go out with a friend for brunch or something (once the kid is back at school of course-- seems like recently he's been average one or two days a week where he's able to go) because I need to relax.  Connor doesn't need me injuring myself on the track because I'm too stressed, or having a breakdown or something.  Getting some social time with the crafting folks yesterday was a big help, but I think I need more chances to blow off some steam or I'm going to start dropping balls in a major way.

I think the little guy and I both need a break!

~Jess  

In Which Connor Tries For A Doctor Appointment Record And I Have Some Crafting Fun

So Connor has a patch of skin on the inside of his arm around an IV site that looks like it's infected.  Despite putting antibacterial ointment on the patch several days in a row now, the nasty red patch is continuing to spread.  So unless something drastically changes tomorrow, it looks like we're headed back to the doctor yet again on Monday.  If we end up going that will make the seventh visit to the doctor's office in the past month.  Glorious. 

The little guy spent some quality time with his daddy today; I had some friends over for a crafting session and so the guys holed up in the back bedroom to hide while we ladies chatted and crafted away.  The crafting and social time was a ton of fun; it was so neat to see what everybody else was making!  Also everybody brought yummy food, which was like a bonus to the already awesome social-time-and-crafting activities.  I might possibly have done more eating than crafting.  Oh well. 

I did manage to make a complete idiot out of myself by not recognizing one of the guests and introducing her by the wrong name.  No, really-- I'm totally not making this up.  Who does that at their own party?  She was very gracious about it, which was really nice of her because I felt like a complete jerk. 

But other than my awkward hosting things went well, and I'm hoping I'll get the chance to do it again soon!  Except minus the making-a-complete-idiot-out-of-myself part.

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Fitted For Some Wheels And Has A Flair For The Dramatic

Connor had a pretty busy day today!

We woke up to about three inches of snow on the ground, and we're supposed to have a whole bunch more tomorrow-- up to twelve inches in what could apparently end up being the worst snowstorm here since 1985.  Connor's school was canceled this morning, so he got the chance to sleep in. 

And yes, I know that for all you hardcore Canadians and Easterners, a foot of snow isn't all that bad.  But nobody here is exactly prepared for that amount of snow, so people are completely freaking out about it. 

Anyway, we braved the snow this afternoon and drove down to the local hospital, where Connor had measurements done to convert his chair for long sitting (where you sit with your legs straight out from your body) so that he'll be stretching out his hamstrings whenever he sits in it.  Then we talked about getting him an adaptive floor sitter too, so he can play down with his friends whenever he has a play date.  And then finally it was time to talk about ordering his new adaptive tricycle!

Connor's long outgrown the Radio Flyer trike that we modified for him a couple of years ago-- his knees are all up around his ears if we try to put him on it.  Since it's pretty well impossible to find a bigger bike that will adapt well to modification, it's time to switch to a bike made specifically for children with special needs that will grow with Connor as he gets older.  It's practically the only physical activity that really motivates the little guy to work hard-- he loves riding and when we tried out a bike at the hospital today he was actually able to start it moving forward by himself!  So we'll be ordering him a trike from Rifton.  I'll let you know how it handles when it comes.

Shortly after we got home from our appointment I got a phone call from Connor's doctor.  The cultures they took of his impetigo came back positive for both a strep and a staph infection, because the little guy doesn't do anything by halves.  Also one of the infections cultured as resistant to the antibiotic we've had him on. 

Bactrim, the antibiotic that did wipe it out and thus is the one we're switching to, could potentially interact with one of Connor's heart medications and give him hyperkalemia (high potassium levels).  Normally that side effect only happens if someone is on the medication for a long period of time, so it's not very likely it will be a problem because Connor only has to take it for ten days.  They're being really cautious though, because hyperkalemia can do some really, really nasty things, like, um, stopping your heart. 

So when we picked up the Bactrim we also got a baseline potassium level drawn, and while he's on it we'll be checking Connor's pulse rate at least once a day and taking him back in for another test if it starts getting slow or irregular, and also if he starts throwing up a lot or seems really weak or tired.  Whee!

Seriously, it's like living with my own miniature soap opera, only with fewer serial killers and alien abductions. 

~Jess

In Which Connor Finds Some Polka Dots

Connor celebrated Ellen's birthday yesterday by having a six and a half minute seizure and then breaking out in blisters all over his face.  He'd had a couple of spots show up in the last few days that I assumed were either eczema or a mild allergic reaction to something, but when I woke him up from his three hour post-seizure nap he looked like he was hitting puberty about eight years early.  Twenty or thirty red, raised bumps were scattered across his face.  His g-tube was also red, crusty and oozing for good measure. 

So it was off to the doctor's office we went.  We sneaked in a scant hour from closing time in the hopes that we'd be able to get an appointment; otherwise we'd have to go to urgent care.  I wasn't sure what was going on with the kid but it was obviously more than eczema, and I didn't want to leave it over the three-day weekend.  Luckily they were able to fit us in.

So it turns out the little guy probably picked up impetigo from somewhere.  Basically it's a skin infection that is usually caused by either strep or staph bacteria.  They took a culture to see exactly what type of bug is causing it, but in the meantime the little guy is now on both oral and topical antibiotics three times daily.  Hopefully that will solve the problem. 

Of course impetigo is contagious, so now Jer and I are having to do a spot check on each other daily until Connor's condition clears up to make sure he hasn't spread it to us. 

Glorious.


~Jess

In Which Connor Is Sick Again

The good news is that Connor's eyes (yes, he ended up with pink eye in both eyes) look about 800% better after a day and a half of eye drops.  Those things work fast!  The bad news is that he's once again running a mystery fever.  He spent about two thirds of the day asleep today and crashed hard when it was time for bed.  So it looks like he's picking up a new bug.  Again.  Fun times.

Jer and I have to leave him with Joanna tomorrow morning despite him feeling punky, though, because we've got our fingerprinting appointment for our adoption USCIS update.  I'm a little unsure of why they have to take our fingerprints again; I wouldn't think they would have changed all that much.  Oh well.  At any rate, once we get this taken care of and they prove that we haven't morphed into different people in the past year we should be cleared for Ellen's adoption until early 2013.  I'm hoping that this is the only time we'll have to update our immigration paperwork and that she'll be home before then!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Full Of Germs Yet Again

Okay, now Connor seems to have an eye infection going.  Either that or he managed to scratch his right eye at some point during the day, because we noticed this evening that it's all red, crusty and weepy.  It seemed fine this morning.  Whee!

Look, I swear I bathe my kid and everything.  While sometimes the sink fills up with dishes and our laundry sits longer than it should, our house does not look like it should be featured on "Hoarders."  I have no idea why all of the sudden he seems to be trying to break some sort of record for as many ailments as possible within the shortest amount of time.  While I'm always proud of my son's achievements, I'm not particularly thrilled with this one. 

So I'll be calling the doctor's office again tomorrow to get him an appointment set up before he, I don't know, catches the bubonic plague or something.

What the heck is up with my child's immune system?

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Now A Double Pirate

Connor woke up this morning with both of his eyes glued shut.

So he stayed home from school again today while we started drops in his left eye, too.  Thanks to said eye drops he shouldn't be contagious anymore tomorrow, but that's kind of a moot point since tomorrow is Saturday and there isn't any school.  He'll go back to school someday, I swear.  He's out of eyes to get infections in, so he'll have to come up with some new and exciting method of getting out of school on Monday. 

How did this kid even get pinkeye, anyway?  Nobody we know has it.  And once he's not contagious anymore, should I dress him up as a pirate with patches on both eyes-- a double pirate?**  I'm pretty sure that would be twice the awesomeness. 

Though it might be kind of hard for him to see.  He'd have to use radarrrrr.

Um, yeah.  Anyway, I spent all of today being hyper aware of the slightest itch or twinge in my eyes.  I stopped and looked in every mirror I passed, totally convinced that I was on the verge of developing pinkeye too.  I'm glad no one but Connor was home to see me because I probably looked really conceited the way I was studying myself every five minutes.  At any rate I have yet to develop any symptoms besides the ones in my head, so I'll be extending my paranoia into the next couple of days and then hopefully I'll be out of the danger zone.

Thankfully I did get to escape this afternoon; spending the better part of a week with practically no break from Connor is not really good for my sanity.  Don't get me wrong-- I love the little guy absolutely to pieces-- but quite frankly spending the majority of my waking hours with no conversationalists other than a non-verbal four year old with a 60 sign vocabulary is not great for my mental health.  When Connor is sick, I sometimes go entire days without talking to anyone besides Connor and Jeremy, and I'm pretty sure my conversational skills have suffered as a result.  This sort of thing is why I have a tendency to lunge at Jer and start desperately chattering at him the second he gets home.  It's not pretty, I can assure you.

So when our respite care worker Joanna came over I was very happy to get out of the house (once I'd finished cleaning out the fridge, which was a task I'd started before she got there and not one I wanted to leave half done) and escape someplace I could talk with actual adults.  Granted, those adults happened to be the pharmacist and the clerk at the local grocery store as with a child on quarantine I'd been unable to do my usual weekly errands, but when you've been deprived for a while a conversation about the price of chicken breasts suddenly seems amazingly interesting. 

Anyway, I ran my errands and then came back to the house and made a big batch of tomatillo salsa while Jeremy finished up at the gym.  Then we went out to dinner, which was lovely, and finished the night off (of course) at a bookstore and a coffee shop. 

So all in all it ended up being a pretty good day, despite the pinkeye and no school and whatnot.  I'm sure tomorrow will be even better!  Or maybe that should be tomarrrrrrow.

Sorry.  Couldn't resist.

~Jess



** Double pirate, all the way!  It's so intense!  What does it mean?

In Which Connor Is A Sort Of Pirate

My Internet has decided that it once again hates me, so this is probably going to be fairly short as I have a small window in which to work. It’s teasing me—blinking on and off again just as I am trying to save or publish things. This is not very wonderful. Looks like it’s back to the coffee shops for me!


Connor and I stayed home today, and for the first half of the day I had to soak open his poor eye every time I needed to put eye drops in it. I actually had to stick the kid in the shower and steam open the eye when he first woke up because it was absolutely glued shut. But the second half of the day his eye was looking much better; he could keep it open and I wasn’t having to wipe gunk out of it every ten minutes. It’s still completely bloodshot and horrible looking in the way that only pinkeye can be, but it seemed obvious that the medication was doing its job and that Connor was on the mend.  He squinted a lot with that eye, though-- so I decided he was a pirate and spent a lot of time singing him sea shanties and saying "Arrrrrr!" in a gruff voice, which he thought was hilarious.  He’ll get to go back to school tomorrow because he’ll have been on the medication at least 24 hours and won’t be contagious anymore. I’m tempted to make him a quick eye patch and dress him up in his pirate outfit, but that would probably require too much effort. Oh well.

I had my final night of roller derby bootcamp tonight, and it was a ton of fun! It’s been awesome getting to know everybody and getting the chance to learn how to move around on skates. We have tryouts next week, and I’m really nervous about them. Whether or not I make it onto the New Bruiser squad though, I’m really glad that I’ve gone out and done this. It’s been an absolute blast!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Under The Weather Again

October has definitely not been Connor's month.

He slept in this morning until ten (he's still fatigued from the med change), which was a mistake on my part.  I'd gotten it into my head that he had PT and OT from eleven to one, when in fact he has them from ten to twelve and has had them that way for at least the last three months.  Apparently even though I got up at a decent hour my brain decided to sleep in.

I'm not winning any awards for competence today.

At any rate, when we got to therapy at eleven they had obviously filled the time with other clients because they assumed we weren't coming.  Luckily our speech therapist was free and so we decided to make up the appointment we missed yesterday due to Connor's giant screaming fest.  Connor was sitting at the little table in the therapy room refusing to make choices on the iPad when I suddenly noticed his right eye was really gunky.  I was kind of embarrassed that I'd missed that when I was getting him out of bed-- I figured it was just sleep in his eye.  A little later I noticed that it seemed pretty red, and there was a bright red line down one side.  We speculated that he might have burst a blood vessel from crying so hard yesterday.

When we got home Connor announced that he was sleepy, so I put him down for a nap.  He slept for another three hours, and when I finally went in to get him up, I discovered that his eye was now swollen and completely crusted shut.  So I called our appointment line to get him into the doctor.  All of the clinics at our usual military hospital were full for the next two days, so it was off to the urgent care clinic we went.

Yep.  Connor's got Pinkeye.

So he'll be missing yet another day of school while we wait for his new eye drops to work-- he gets one drop every four hours until the bottle is gone-- and hopefully things will clear up quickly and Connor can work on being healthy for a while. 

That would be a pleasant change!

~Jess

In Which They Figure Out What The Heck Is Going On With Connor

So we have some answers!

Over the past few days they've done many, many tests on Connor to see if they can figure out what's going on.  One of the things they did was take a nasal swab to run a bunch of rapid viral tests.

Sure enough, they found something. Connor came up positive for parainfluenza.

Parainfluenza is not the flu and there's no immunization or effective antibiotic for it; it's the family of viruses that cause the common cold with fever, a good portion of cases of croup, and a number of cases of bronchiolitus or pneumonia too.  So far Connor's is sticking to the upper part of his respiratory system, which is a good thing.  He's developed a pretty good cough, though, and spent most of the day today sleeping.  There's really not a whole lot the hospital can do other than to keep him hydrated, comfortable and seizure free.

The little guy is still desatting while asleep (he hovers in the high 80's without oxygen) so until that resolves and they think they can take him off of the Ativan every eight hours I'm pretty sure we'll be sticking around the hospital.  Jeremy's spending the night there tonight and I've come back to the house; we'll switch off tomorrow night.  Hopefully Connor will be able to get over the worst of his illness soon and we'll be able to bring him home!

Jeremy actually gave me the latest update on Connor by phone while I was on my way back home from roller derby bootcamp.  Yes, I went to roller derby bootcamp while my son was in the hospital.  I seriously needed to get a good workout in, because after two days of sitting in my living room watching my kid breathe, and then another full two days of sitting in a hospital room watching my kid attempt to breathe, I was just a wee bit tense. 

It took me a little while to relax once I was up on skates (and believe me, if you are really tense on roller skates you fall down a lot) but once I got into it and was able to take my mind off the little guy for a while I felt much better and actually managed to stay on my feet.  I think that after four years of doing these sorts of crazy adrenaline rushes I've learned what my limits are and when I need to take a break from being Mom, and tonight I was pretty close to that limit.  I'll get a good night's sleep tonight, and then tomorrow I'll be able to go back to the hospital refreshed to relieve Jeremy so he can get his much-needed break.

So anyway, thanks to everybody for your continued prayers and thoughts of support; keep your fingers crossed for us that Connor will be able to hold his own soon!

~Jess

In Which I Jump About From Topic To Topic With No Transition Whatsoever

We got an e-mail back from the school district about whether or not we're allowed to tape the IEP meetings. They said that they'd agree to have the next one recorded, and they'd bring a tape recorder too. That's totally fine with us. Hopefully the meeting next Wednesday will allow us to resolve our differences over what Connor needs to get an adequate education. I'm really tired of going to meetings.

Connor was much improved this morning; his fever is completely gone, he ate more than he has in weeks, and he seemed pretty chipper. We took him into the doctor's office about eleven, and the poor little guy recieved two more big shots of Rocephin, which he didn't appreciate at all. I'm told that those shots hurt like a son-of-a-gun. The blood cultures were still pending, but we've got another appointment tomorrow and we'll find out what, if anything, showed up then. For Easter Sunday Connor will recieve yet two more shots in his much abused little thighs. Poor guy.

The highlight of the week for me thus far happened when I refilled the hummingbird feeder on Connor's window. I took the feeder off and filled it in the kitchen, and then walked back through the yard to hang it up again. As I rounded the corner of the house, two male Rufous hummingbirds zoomed up to where the feeder normally is, saw me with the feeder in my hand, and actually flew up and perched on the feeder about four inches from my face. They stayed there for about five minutes, periodically launching themselves up off the feeder and zooming in circles around my head while I tried very hard to look like a small pink-barked tree. I discovered that hummingbirds breathe really, really fast. Also they shoot their tiny tongues in and out when they sit up to take a break from eating-- they look like they're licking the last bit of necter off the edges of their beaks. I'd never seen two male Rufous hummingbirds eat from the same feeder before; usually they're the one's trying to drive all the other hummingbirds away. These two just fluffed their feathers at one another and pipped a couple of times, but I guess they were hungry enough that they were willing to temporarily share. After they finally flew off I hung the feeder and then walked into the house in a daze, sporting a giant goofy grin. Now I've taken to walking back to Connor's window with a refilled feeder very, very slowly, in the hopes that it will happen again. My neighbors probably think I'm nuts.

Anyway, an early Happy Easter to everyone!

~Jess

To The Hospital We May Go...AGAIN.

So Connor is still feeling under the weather. He's still running a fever, still having GI issues, still has no appetite, still is irritable and tired. While Tylenol brings his fever down to a really low grade one or to normal, as soon as it wears off it starts slowly climbing again. I went ahead and paged our doc today since we hadn't heard back from the hospital, and he consulted with a few other doctors there and called us back. Here's what we've been told so far:

• Typically with a virus, a fever should only last 3-5 days. Since Connor has been running a low-grade fever since April 2nd, this is too long to be just one virus, though it is possible that he had a couple of viruses back to back. He'd also spiked that really high fever on March 27th that we ended up in the hospital for, but there were a couple of days in between where Connor didn't seem to be running a fever, so that may not be related. Of course, he was also on some pretty massive doses of Tylenol, too, so who knows.

• Connor has had GI issues since his surgery on the 23rd. That's way too long to be having those issues without a cause other than a virus. They've slowly gotten worse over the last week or so too, not in frequency, but in, um...consistency. (Ew. Sorry.) If it was an issue with his new diet, we probably wouldn't be seeing that change, nor should he be running a fever.

• Since he actually had an incision made to put the g-tube in and it wasn't a "blind" insertion, then it's not likely the issue is something like the surgeon accidentally causing a perforated intestine-- an extremely dangerous situation where there is a cut in the intestine wall that causes leakage into the body cavity. Connor's incision site on the outside looks good, too-- no signs of infection that Jer and I can see, though the doc will take a look at it. However, since he's been running a fever for this long, it very well could be due to an infection somewhere in the g-tube site, even if it's not showing up on the surface of the skin.

Since Connor's condition seems to be pretty stable right now, they thought it would probably be okay to wait until the morning to bring him in, as long as we were comfortable with that. If at some point during the night he starts getting dehydrated due to the GI issues, his fever spikes really high, we can't wake him up, or his "state of awareness" changes (he doesn't know who we are, isn't aware of surroundings, et cetera) then we'll bring him into the ER. We'll bring him in first thing tomorrow and the doctors will take a good look at him and figure out whether or not they want to admit him, run a bunch of cultures if they can determine the cause of his issues, and monitor him to make sure his electrolytes aren't becoming unbalanced and he's not ending up dehydrated. We're less than five minutes from the hospital, so we're okay with waiting until tomorrow morning to go in.

Long story short, there's a good chance we'll end up admitted back into the hospital tomorrow, and we may be there for a while. I'll keep you all posted as to what's going on with us.

~Jess