Monkeying Around

Friends from Milwaukee visited this weekend, and we took a couple hours on Friday to go to the zoo. The animals were very active, which was fun to see. We even were lucky enough to see two newbie elephants playing in the water together. They were super cute.

Lexi enjoyed the close up of the monkeys. I would say that the monkey noise is her favorite, so until she can talk and tell us different, we're declaring that her favorite animal.

There were also beautiful tulips in bloom. We tried to get a good picture of Lexi, but she was so determined to undo her shoes that we weren't very successful. This is the best we could get.

Pneumonia

Well, we've got good news and bad news. First the bad news… Lexi is battling pneumonia. Her doctor's appt on Monday morning revealed that she's come down with pneumonia, as well as ear infections in both ears. Her 104 temps and fluid-filled lungs nearly landed her in the hospital on Monday, but the doc tested her oxygen saturation levels, and she came out at 95%. So they sent her home under strict instructions to bring her back immediately if she looked pale, ran a fever, or had shallow breaths at any point in the coming days.

Thankfully, she appears to have improved substantially over the last 48hrs, so we're hopeful she can avoid the hospital this time around. In the meantime, we've traded in the Lovenox shots for steroid treatments 4x per day, Amoxocillin 2x per day, Albuterol treatments 2x per day, and ear drops 2x per day. She screams during everything but the Amoxocillin, so you can imagine how rewarding parenting is this week. We give her a milk jug full of needle pokes for a month or two, then promptly replace that by pinning her down to blow smoke into her lungs, shove medicine down her throat, and jam liquids down her ears multiple times each day. I'm not sure at what age children can file for protective custody or new guardianship, but I'm confident she will do so as soon as she is legally allowed.

Now the good news. Lexi's severe illness caregiver specialists (Kevin and Deb) are already in town to watch Lexi and to help her through her latest bout with a severe illness. Laura was scheduled to be out of town on business this week, so Brian's parents had agreed to come down and watch Lexi for a few days this week. Unfortunately, this marks twice in a row that their extended quality time with Lexi has been with a sick grandchild instead of a healthy one, but they handle it well and are good sports about it. And Lexi does her part by flashing an amazing number of smiles -- even when she's not feeling her best and when her caregivers are attacking her with meds and treatments all day long.

Rough Weekend

Unfortunately, our little miss 'can't stay healthy' had kind of a rough go of it this past weekend. The weather was absolutely perfect outside, but Lexi was stuck inside trying to fight off a fever and ear infection. It peaked at 103.6 in the middle of the night Sat night, but hasn't risen above 102 today, so hopefully the worst is over and she's on the mend. There has been more than one time over the past few days that we've been tempted to hit the panic button given past experiences, but so far we've maintained our cool and plan to just take her to the doc on Monday morning.

Despite the unfortunate illness, Lexi did experience one piece of good news heading into the weekend. Friday was the last day she had to take a Lovenox shot to the gut! This picture looks like it might have been taken by some heroine addicts on the East side, or in the movie American Gangsters which we watched last night. Sadly, however, it offers just a little insight into what Lexi has been up to the past few weeks. We're aware that loose needles in the trash isn't a good thing, so we've been accumulating her needles in an empty milk jug so we can dispose of them properly.

So the good news this weekend is that we've declared a cease fire on shooting Lexi's belly repeatedly, so her wounds can heal up and she can avoid that misery going forward. Now we just need her ear infection to go away and her fever to break, so we can lay off the Albuterol treatments and Children's Motrin, and officially have a drug free child for the first time in quite a while!