Zoo Day

The zoo gets better and better with Asher.  He LOVED the giraffes, and was very afraid of the tamarins, polar bears, and fighting zebras.

A Beautiful Day at Los Poblanos Farm

Fall in Albuquerque is really beautiful.  There are a lot of rustic, quaint farms along the Rio where you can pick flowers and mosey around.  This morning Kira and I took the boys to pick sunflowers.

Kira and Beckett

Plane!

Love you Grandma Sara.

Kitty!

Beckett's Nose.

Minnesota Update

We made our way up to Minnesota this last week for Asher to be evaluated by the GI team at the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital.  We will get the results of the pH probe (evaluating reflux) and the scope biopsies (looking for food allergies/sensitivities) next week.  Until then, the doctors have said the most important thing we can do is restrategize how/what/when we feed Asher to control symptoms.  They said that alone, many of his issues would be 'normal' (e.g. not gaining weight, weird poop, decreased appetite), but that the vomiting at night is not normal.  So we met with his dietician within an hour of returning to Albuquerque and she is revamping his feeding schedule following the guidance from the GI team.  Asher is still aspirating, so the dietician would like us to see a new speech therapist to evaluate whether or not we should repeat Asher's swallow study (last done in February).  

All in all, we felt like we were in good hands in Minnesota and were very happy to learn that nothing terrible is going on.  But we have a lot of work ahead of us to make sure Asher's dysphagia doesn't continue into childhood.

We checked in on Monday morning and took rides around the med/surg floor until they were ready to put in the pH probe.  

Big fat thank you's to Tim, Karen, Dad, Jo, Caleb, Allie, and Jim for coming to the hospital to help us keep Asher distracted.  All of the action led to him sleeping soundly through the night.

Asher had an additional visitor- his new giraffe friend.

Asher & Willie had matching bracelets.

This is what Asher on versed looks like.  So, so, so relaxed. 

Daddy & Ash in the recovery room after surgery.

Before and After Minnesota

The sun rising over the mountain (yep, we get up early enough to see sunrises in this house, yuck).

Brunch with Kira before heading out for Asher's stuff.

Trying to say 'plane' with a mouth full of crackers.

Trying to say 'plane' from inside the house (note the 3 pacifiers...tough life).

Little Sailor driving his pirate ship.

Brewing With Daddy

Oh Boy

Here We Go Again

Agggghhhh.  

Asher aspirated again.  After running a low grade temp for two weeks, things got real again late last week.  His 99.4 temp jumped to 102.6 and he stopped eating.  He coughed until he puked and hasn't slept well at night in about a week.  We saw the pediatrician Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday - and went to three different places to try to get a chest x-ray done on Friday.  

The first attempt at an x-ray was at 7 a.m.  Following the on call pediatrician's specific instructions to be the first people there at 7, we drove to the clinic bright and early.  Except they don't open at 7.  They never open at 7.  They have only ever opened at 8.  The woman working at the urgent care said, "Why don't you just go grab breakfast across the street for an hour and come back hun?".  Because I have an 18 month old who loves sitting still for an hour in  loud, busy places... especially when he has a 102 degree temp.  So we went back at 9:00 after Asher had napped and were told, "We are all set up and ready to do the x-rays, just want to give you a heads up mom that the computer hasn't been working well so we've had to do 4-5 extra x-rays on each person so far today to get the picture to upload.  It's no problem, just might take a little longer."   Exhausted and on edge I said, "Wait wait, you're telling me you are going to expose him to 4-5 times the radiation he needs for the films because your computer isn't working?".  She said "Yep!".  And I said, "That's bullshit."  And walked out.  Not good behavior, but it was that or throw something (like a punch).  We walked up to the peds front desk and asked for the order for the x-ray so we could take it to the local hospital.  Once we got there, we were told the x-ray wouldn't be read until Saturday and that we wouldn't know the results until Monday.  So what was the point? you might be wondering....yeah, me too.  Turns out the doctor who put the order in late Thursday night (knowing the x-ray would happen on a Friday) didn't enter the order as "STAT".  But wouldn't any good doctor, knowing that the symptoms were pointing to pneumonia in a kid with a history of aspiration, put a Friday morning order in as STAT to make sure it got taken care of before the weekend? you might be wondering...yeah, me too.  The problem with this x-ray was that the emergency room doctor missed the aspiration pneumonia the first time around because it didn't look like a traditional pneumonia, it took the radiologist reading the film to see it, so as much as I like our pediatrician, I was not in the mood to put all of our eggs in that basket.  But it's what we did, because we didn't have another option other than a trip to the ER.  So on Friday we saw Dr. Good who agreed a bacterial infection from aspiration seemed to be the culprit for Asher's symptoms and prescribed an antibiotic (he thought the x-ray looked okay, but we decided to treat an infection none the less).  Well, everything was looking good.  His fever broke within 24 hours and while he was still not eating and coughing quite a bit at night, we thought things might start to look up.  Until this morning.  When Ash woke up with a rash all over his face, eyes, neck, stomach, and chest.  Allergic reaction to azithromycin.  So he is now on a regimen of benadryl every 4 hours until the reaction abates.  We will likely end up back at the doctor tomorrow to discuss what to do next and have him looked at again.  He hasn't wanted to eat in 5 days and is still not sleeping at night.  I want a punch card and my own parking spot at ABQ Healthpartners.

The goal is to get him as healthy as possible before his hospitalization in a week... we will see what we can do.

Starting to not feel good.

Really not feeling good.

Rash after antibiotics.

Random Happenings in Albuquerque

This could only end well.

Reading the morning paper.

Harlan's Nightmare.

Brian Urlacher in the airport--- made me SO happy :)

Race car.

Helping daddy brew gluten-free beer for mommy.

Ben & Eric went to an Isotopes game last night.  I give ABQ a hard time, but you can't complain about our sunsets.