Piggy Bank

I don't post much because when I sit down at the computer I know my time is limited. Any second a 3.80 year old will fight me for the mouse or a 10 month old will cry or come pull on my apron strings requiring attention. And because I want to make my posts "the best thing you've ever read" I can't see throwing a post together really quick when I know it can be better. I have high standards in some departments. If you've seen my house, obviously not high ones for every department of my life. :)

I'll try to do better. I am a blog stalker, and if it's one thing I do know, it's that a crappy post is better than no post.

But I digress....

Around the end of September Peyton started to get "sick." His main symptom was rattled breathing. I have been comparing it to Darth Vader. He also had an occasional cough. Oh dang. Poor little guy is getting a cold. Here we go...

But then nothing else happened. No runny nose. No fever. His rattling stayed about the same. One night he was extra cuddly while I was at work so Matt decided to take him to the dr. just to make sure. No fever, no ear infection, oxygen level perfect, and lungs sounded clear.

Diagnosis: Mild cold.

Treatment: None. Tylenol is you want.

One week later we went to the dr. again for his 9 month well-child visit. No change in his breathing but everything else was status quo. No fevers, no ear infection, lungs, oxygen fine. (Side note: he's growing perfectly and he got a "seasonal flu shot")

Diagnosis: Cold. It's almost been two weeks, dr. bets he'll be better by the weekend. By then it will have been two weeks, which is about normal.

Two more weeks go by. No change whatsoever. The good side to this is that he's not getting worse. Bad side...he's not getting better. He's become a little more clingy and not sleeping well. Other than that, he's generally happy and doing fine. He just sounds like Darth Vader.

We have him seen by our dr. again. Of course, no fever, no ear infection, lungs and oxygen are fine. She doesn't like to prescribe antibiotics unless she's sure of something going on. (Which, by the way, I totally appreciate. Our previous pediatrician actually told us once that he gives parents an antibiotic because it makes us feel better that he did something. That really bugged me. We changed drs. because our insurance changed...but I'm sure I would have changed eventually. Was not impressed.)

Anyway, back to the saga. She decides to give him a breathing treatment (a nebulizer(sp?)) No change. I can tell she's perplexed. In passing she mentions a chest x-ray, but in the end she opts for a round of antibiotics (Zithromax). Maybe it's (enter name of a bacteria that I don't remember). It can settle in the lungs and cause general "not feeling well". It won't lay you out flat, but you don't feel good. She compared it to a walking pneumonia or walking bronchitis. We were satisfied. Sounded just like what Peyton had. BUT...(somehow knowing it might not work) she told us to call her by day three or four of the antibiotic if he wasn't feeling better.

By day three we knew it wasn't working. But we finished the course (5 days) on Friday. We should have called her but my mom was in town, we only have one car, yada yada yada. We let it go the weekend. After all, he's not totally miserable and it's been this long anyway. I was frustrated. We started thinking he was prob allergic to something. What could it be? Was it the formula? Was it the in-laws dog? Do we have mold in the house? Can babies even have allergies? What? What? What?

I even was hesitating calling the dr again because he'd been treated for everything.

Asthma: no

Infection: no
Allergy: no

(she told us once to buy Zyrtec and start giving that to him but of course it didn't work)

What else could she do anyway. She mentioned a chest x-ray and later I said to my husband, exasperating, "What's an x-ray gonna tell us? I don't know what she'd be looking for."

Ha ha. Little did I know.

Jordan Valley Hospital did the x-ray. Matt was there and he knew it was a coin although technically they couldn't tell us that. So we had to wait for the tech to show the radiologist, for the radiologist to talk to the dr, and for our dr to call us to tell us it was a quarter stuck in his throat. Oh thanks. Now we know. She advised us to go up to Primary Children's ER. She would call and let them know we were coming...it wouldn't help the wait though. When we were on our way she called me again, saying she had talked to the dr in the ER and she wanted us to be prepared that it would be an OR procedure. She didn't want us to be freaking out when we got there. She's so cool. I love our dr. (She's actually an NP, but I just call her our dr.)

After 13 hours in the ER, then RTU (Rapid Treatment Unit) he was carried into the OR. Twenty minutes later the ENT dr. came into the waiting room, shaking a cup, as if to indicate "we got it!"

Good news was...it was ONLY a penny. They just place a tube down the throat and pluck it out. They were a little concerned about scar tissue growth, because it'd been in there for so long (4 weeks!) but everything was fine.

Our Peyter-nater had a sore throat and was still raspy for a few more days, but he's now doing better than ever. He's a new kid. He'll play by himself, crawl around, sleep all night, play peek-a-boo, and eat full portions now. In retrospect, he wasn't eating as much as "before". We just thought he was "sick", how could we know his throat was blocked?

We got to keep the penny. It's Peyton's Lucky Penny. It didn't kill him, that's enough to make it lucky.

My favorite part about sleeping overnight at the hospital, was spooning with Matt, on a smaller-than-a-twin bed. :) (Really...it was. I love my Matt)