She's a Genius!

I was officially baffled. Jack's fever was up (and staying there)...he was complaining of his stomach hurting...but he wasn't throwing up at all.

Then she called.

My sweet sister-in-law called me and asked if I had thought about the possibility of Jack's illness being caused by strep. Apparently there's this weird strain of strep going around whose main symptoms are high fever, vomiting at the onset, and abdominal pain. When Jack started throwing up on Wednesday, I immediately assumed we had been discovered. The tummy bug knew where we lived. I was so far down that path that I had completely forgotten a conversation I had had with some of the other moms in Abigail's ballet class on Monday (just two days earlier) about this very thing. One mom even knew a girl who went into kidney failure before they finally pinpointed what was causing her symptoms. It never even crossed my mind again until Angie called.

Now fast-forward a few hours. We're sitting in the pediatrician's office, Jack's fever is 104 degrees, he's extremely lethargic and feeling nothing short of rotten. His bloodwork showed very elevated viral counts but a white count that was in the normal range.

It's times like this that remind me of why I love our pediatrician. He said that the bloodwork made it look like this was simply a nasty fever bug, but he just didn't have a good feeling about it, so he went ahead with a strep test (despite the fact that Jack's white count wasn't elevated). Twenty minutes later he walked in and said it was definitely positive. Jack's got strep.

Because Jack seemed to be headed downhill so quickly, the doctor went ahead and gave him an antibiotic shot rather than waiting for oral meds to kick in. And let's just say that in the past two hours, Jack has gone from feeling like he was run over by a semi to this:


So Aunt Angie, we're convinced that you're a genius! And we're so thankful you called with the strep idea...it saved us what would have been a lengthy (and very germy) visit to Children's South this weekend!

Fun Friday Photo

The pediatrician wants to see Jack this afternoon, so I'll post an update later tonight, but here's a fun Friday photo for an otherwise droopy day.

Tummy Bad

The first item of business is to let you all know that Jack hasn't thrown up in right at 24 hours!! You can't possibly understand the miracle of that without knowing or remembering these two things. First of all, Jack has an immune deficiency that causes him to react more strongly than most children do to typical illnesses; and secondly, of the two tummy bugs going around here right now, neither involves less than enormous amounts of fluid loss (through various paths out of the body).

Jack's fever is up a good bit again tonight, but the biggest battle he's fighting is with nausea. He'll go a little while feeling pretty good, and then he'll touch his tummy and say "tummy bad" and begin to cry. We had actually gone outside for some fresh air when another wave hit him this afternoon.

(you can click on the picture to enlarge it...you really get the full effect of his pitiful face then)

So I guess tonight's prayers would be first for thanksgiving that Jack is no longer vomiting and secondly for the nausea and his fever to go away. And of course, please pray for the girls (and us)...Izzy is apparently determined that Jack should share everything with her (such as the cup she found again today and drank from...as well as the germs it had all over it!). Aarrgghhh!

I Promise It's Clean

Little Boy feels better.

Mommy is glad.

Little Boy wants to run and play.

Mommy's not so sure that's a good idea.

Little Boy doesn't think he needs the throw-up bowl anymore.

Mommy says Little Boy should keep the throw-up bowl just in case there's a sneak attack (after all, Little Boy has a very curious Little Sister who would love to explore the collateral damage of a sneak attack).

Little Boy decides the throw-up bowl's not so bad after all!

Pray, pray, pray!!

There's a tummy bug going around our city.

But it's not just any tummy bug...it's a seriously vicious one that takes out anyone in its path. We know of at least two families whose children have had to make trips to Children's Hospital because of severe dehydration. So imagine how my heart skipped a beat when Jack threw up this afternoon at 4:15. I was in another room changing Izzy's diaper, so I didn't see the circumstances around it. He was eating peanuts...could he have choked? Maybe he tried to say something with food in his mouth? I was actually beginning to buy my own pathetic theories until he threw up again at 7:30 tonight. And unfortunately this was no normal throw-up. I'll spare you the nitty-gritty, but I do have one question. How does a child who only weighs 35 pounds expel 45 pounds worth of vomit?

Enough of that.

Needless to say, Jack's had a pretty rough night. So rough, in fact, that he fell asleep on the bathroom floor while I was cleaning up the aftermath of his dinner (why, oh why, did I make something with a red tomato base?)

(yep, that's a throw-up bowl beside him)


We pray daily for the health of our children, families, and friends, but it goes without saying that we really kicked it into high gear once we saw the direction this was going. Our family surrounded Jack as he lay on the floor, and we prayed for God to protect him, to heal him, and to keep the rest of us safe from this bug. It warmed my heart to hear Abby pray for her little brother and ask God to "help him feel better and to have a good night's sleep".

She asked God for healing. She believes that He'll do it. And we do too.

I just put Jack to bed for the night a few minutes ago, and his fever was down (from 103.5), he hadn't thrown up any more, and he was keeping down a few sips of water.

But there's another angle to this story. I kept my sister's son, Brayden, while she took their littlest one (excluding the one in her tummy) to the doctor for a well-baby visit this morning. And remember how I mentioned that Jack threw up for the first time at 4:15? I caught Isabel drinking from Jack's sippy cup at 5:00.

Pray, pray, pray!!

Sticky Tears

This week's theme on I ♥ Faces is "Pouting". We try really hard to teach our little ones not to pout or whine, but Isabel's still climbing the learning curve. And she goes the extra mile to cry these tears that just won't go away! Seriously, she'll get upset about something at 11:00, and at 11:20, the tears will still be stuck to her face. How does she do that?!? Anyway, when I saw this week's theme, I knew I had to post this photo.


We've obviously got a lot of work to do.

I'm sure there's going to be some really "pitiful" photos, so to see the other entries this week, click on the button below:

Contrast

As I was looking back over the past week, one word came to mind that sums it all up...and that word is contrast.

Let's start with Josh's third post-op appointment last Monday. At the previous appointment, Josh's surgeon had all but promised him he would come out of the cast and into a boot. Now this wasn't going to be a walking boot (he's got a little bit longer of "non-weight-bearing"), but that didn't matter so much to Josh. What really made his heart skip a beat was the idea of being able to remove the boot to take a shower again for the first time in more than six weeks. That was the hope. The reality, though, was that once they removed Josh's cast, they could see that his foot is pointed down and inward. He has a clubbed foot. The doctor said even if his bones were stable enough to come out of the cast, he couldn't actually fit Josh's foot into a boot when it was like that.
So what do you do to turn a clubbed foot into a non-clubbed foot? Let's just say the kids and I left the building.

Looking forward to finally taking a shower then coming home with yet another cast... contrast.

Now that spring has arrived, my calendar is filling up with photography sessions. I had two this past week that couldn't have been more opposite in nature. Thursday night, our good friends Steve and Libby asked me to shoot a dinner and informational session that Steve was hosting for his clients. I don't do much indoor photography, and I certainly don't shoot much at night, so it was great practice for me. And Steve gives me full reign with creativity...it's always fun to do sessions for him and Libby!

We're clients of Steve's, and we would highly recommend him to anyone looking for a financial advisor. You can check him out here. (And no, he didn't pay me to say this!)

Less than 24 hours after that session, I got some practice in another area I don't work in very often (and by "not very often" I mean "never before"). My hairdresser is starting her own business and needs photos for her website. She was a bridesmaid in a wedding on Friday, and she asked me to come do shots of the bride and the other bridesmaids (whose hair and makeup she had done). No pressure!

So from business suits and portfolios to wedding gowns and tiaras...contrast.

Our next adventure was skipping back over to Atlanta on Saturday morning for a couple of neat celebrations. On Saturday night, we went to a graduation party for Josh's sister's husband (better known to us as Uncle Kevin). While Georgia may not yet recognize him as a doctor until he's finished with his boards, we think we're going to go ahead and start calling him "Dr. Uncle Kevin"!! Then the celebration shifted down a generation as we attended their daughter, Ayda's, baby dedication. And then my favorite part...pictures!!! Ayda looked precious in her little dress, and she was an angel for her photos. Just look at this sweet face...

After a little family gathering at Bok and Kevin's house, we hopped back in the car to head home. And as we were turning onto the interstate, we were met with an odd sight. There were a couple of Canadian geese standing in the middle of the on-ramp to the highway. Now we have Canadian geese near our house that we see daily as we're out running errands, but they're surrounded by a lake and trees. They looked a little different surrounded by concrete and "SPEED LIMIT 190" signs. Anyway, I kept driving in their direction (not because I intended to hit them, but because they were still pretty far away, and I knew they had time to move over).

Yeah...that didn't happen.

One very wise goose scooted off onto the shoulder of the road, but the other goose decided to fly. Good idea, huh? Not so much when you decide to fly straight at my car! People, I am not exaggerating here when I say he was literally headed straight towards our windshield, and thankfully, I barely missed him. And that was only because I drove off the side of the road (barely missing the smarter goose)! Click here to experience exactly what I saw. It was apparently a traumatic event for Abby as well because she broke into tears as soon as it happened. Although the more I think about it, that might be from the ear-piercing shriek I let out as I almost flipped the car trying to escape a head-on collision. With a goose. In Atlanta.

Peaceful time with my sweet niece doing what I love to playing chicken with a goose on the ramp to I-285 not even ten minutes later...contrast.

So although we've had a really busy week, it's been lots of fun.

Minus the cast and the suicidal goose.