Health Update

We are the house of health issues--surely we see more doctors per capita than most households! Marty has seen several of his specialists for the first time since he busted out of the hossy this last week, so I thought I'd just do a little update on all of us, to keep everyone in the loop.

Marty:  He's been going for outpatient IV antibiotics since he was released from the hospital the first time. He has chest x-rays and blood work weekly to make sure that the rampant strep infection that they discovered in his chest cavity is continuing to dissipate. At his appointment this past Monday, they found that his white blood cell count is ALLLLLMOST back to normal, and his chest x-ray looked significantly better. So, he will continue to get IVs through Friday, and then will switch to oral antibiotics for a bit. He will be followed by infectious disease for awhile, just to make sure the infection stays away.  He also saw his sleep doctor, who follows his newly-discovered apnea. Apparently the C-PAP, although he felt it was really helping, is actually not really preventing apnea episodes. In the hospital he had 20 episodes in 2 hours; now he's down to a 17. Obviously, not good. He will go for a more thorough sleep study next week and will probably be put on a different C-PAP machine. They believe his issue isn't related to an obstructed airway, but more of a "Central Sleep Apnea" related to his brain tumor and surgery/treatment. Short version: when he sleeps, his brain fails to send the breathe signal to his lungs. Yeah, so that's not a great thing. Glad he's having the sleep study next week so we can fix the problem. It can't be helping his already crappy immune system to be getting that kind of sleep.  He followed up with our regular doctor this week as well, who did more blood work. When he was in the hospital, one of his immunoglobulin levels was low, so we were kind of thinking that may be the underlying issue causing his severe infections. However, his most recent blood work was normal, so...that's not it. Back to the drawing board. He will see the pulmonologists next week. Whew.  Enough to make your head hurt.

Amelia:  I'm a terrible mother. She's late on all of her yearly check-ups. She needs to see neurology and nephrology, as well as genetics.  I know, I know...I'll call this week. We've just had a lot going on around here. You know, with the deathly ill Daddy situation.  She's doing very well. I think she's had a growth spurt--her pants are shorter. At her last weigh-in, she was a tad over 22 pounds. She's also getting some more teeth, which is...well...not great actually. Her little mouth is getting mighty crowded. Our dentist thinks she will eventually need teeth removed and not one but TWO rounds of orthodontics. Yippee. She seems to have gotten over our last round of funk, just in time for her seasonal allergies to kick in. Good stuff right there.

Anderson:  He's good. Got over this last sickness. His physical health is unremarkable. We are taking a speech therapy break until he goes to K next year; he has been meeting most of his speech goals and quite frankly, our health insurance changed and it was going to cost an arm and a leg. The boy has been in therapy of some sort since he turned 18 months old, without any breaks in service; I'm not feeling too guilty about taking these last few months off. We are deciding if we want him to participate in some kind of social skills group or activity this summer. However, with our excessive snow days, summer is gonna be mighty short around here.

Me:  Still crazy. Also, having a little trouble regulating my stupid thyroid. It can't decide if it wants to run low (which is hyperthyroid) or high (which is hypothyroid).  That's a lot of fun...if you have thyroid issues, you know what I'm talking about. Other than gaining a whopping eight pounds since Marty went into the hospital about six weeks ago (that's a LOT on a short girl like me!), I'm all good.  Need to get in a diet and exercise routine, but that's pretty much a constant.

Haddie:  Still adorable. Best dog in the world.

Elsa:  Still headless/body-less. Anderson just carries the head around everywhere. It freaks people out. Pretty sure I saw a small child start crying the other day.

Anna:  Still Amelia's favorite.