Goodbye Adenoids

Olivia said goodbye to her adenoids today. They were almost completely blocking her nasal passage. They were giving her a lot of trouble - constant congestion, snoring, sleep apnea. It was time for them to go.

Check out my cool PJs.

Take my picture!

Livi and Daddy

Mommy and Livi

Right after this, Livi got to drink some "silly juice" and wait for the doctor to get there. She was so silly and loopy. The nurses were cracking up. As soon as the doctor got there they took her for her surgery.

We met her in recovery about an hour later. They had given her something to help her sleep off the anesthesia since she started screaming when she woke up. She looked pretty pitiful with all her montiors and IV. She did great though. She did whine a lot as she was waking up. She finally really woke up and kept saying she wanted to go home and she wanted to take all the stuff (IV and monitors) off of her.

We had to hang out there for 3 hours. She had some ice and a popsicle while we waited. She was much happier when we were able to hold her. Overall she did pretty good. She was glad when we finally got home and she was able to get comfortable.

Meeting Bubba

We picked up Katie from the hospital tonight and got a sneak peek at Ryan. What a cutie! The girls were all excited and Katie was proud to show off her baby brother!

All the girls complaining that they can't see Bubba.

Katie and Juli checking everything out.

Hi, little guy!

Welcome to the World, Sara Rose!

Welcome to the family! Congratulations to Karen & John!!

Sara Rose was born this morning. She weighed in at 8lbs 8oz and was 20.5 inches long.

She is a beautiful little baby with a head FULL of hair! Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:








Both Mom and Baby are doing well!

Livi's ER Visit

100/365: Livi's ER visit, originally uploaded by sanboogie.

Livi has had fevers off and on for the last few days. She ended up waking up with blood in her mouth so we took her to the pediatrician. She thought it was coming from in a tooth coming in, since she didn't see anything else. We went home and after nap she had more blood pooling in her mouth. We scooped her up and ran right back to the pediatrician. She thought her tonsils looked large and like there may have been a spot on them that could have been bleeding. We have already been to the ENT so she thought it best to send us to him. She called the office and sent us over. When we got there, they told us they had gotten him on the phone and he wanted us to go right to the children's hospital that he is associated with and have her observed.

We grabbed Juli from school, dropped her off and my mom's and headed to the ER at St. Christopher's. Livi was poked and prodded and tested and watched for what seemed like forever. Eventually all the tests came back as normal. We had a few ENTs look at her. In the morning our ENT came in and got a good look. He wanted her to eat food to see if it would cause any bleeding. She ate with no problems. He came back later and diagnosed it as hemorraging tonsilitis. He saw no places for the blood to come from and said they usually heal quickly without treatment. We were discharged by lunch the next day and able to go home and get some rest.

St. Christopher's has this cool thing in the lobby. When you look at it, it looks like a fish tank in the ground. When you walk on it, it ripples like you stepped on the water. Livi was loving it! Obviously she was also feeling a little better.

Livi's ER visit

On Wednesday Livi started to run a fever. Right around lunch time it was a low grade fever, so I thought maybe it was her teeth bothering her. It crept up a little higher as the afternoon went on. My mom gave her Tylenol and by the time I got home from work it was low again. She sat at the little table we have and ate dinner and was then running around and playing.

I had somewhere to go with my mom and Karen, so Denise came down to keep an eye on Livi so I didn't have to take her with me. I dropped Juli off with Joseph so she could play with Katie and to keep those two away from Livi just in case she was getting sick.

At about 8pm Denise called me and told me that Livi had just woke up and her fever was 105.5. She had already called the pediatrician and got the on-call doctor from their partner group. He recommended that she take her to the ER to get it checked out.

I met Denise at the Emergency Room, ironically we pulled into the parking lot from opposite directions at the same exact time! We double parked and I ran over to get Livi. As soon as Denise pulled her out of the car and handed her to me, she vomited all over both of us. I'm sure they could smell us coming. It was horrible!

Once we got into the ER, they ran a bunch of tests and gave Livi motrin to bring down her fever. The tests were horrible. Livi cried hysterically the whole time, breaking my heart. She was good though. Although she was crying, she did lay still and let them do what they needed to do. After getting the blood and urine sample, they needed to do a chest x-ray to make sure everything was okay in there. They brought the x-ray machine into the room and sat the bed up. They told me to sit Livi on the bed with her back against what I assume was the x-ray films. I sat her down and she started to cry. The x-ray tech said to her, "Oh no sweetie, we're just going to take a picture." To which Livi replied, "Cheese."

She took a nap while we waited for the results. Right before the pediatrician came in she woke up and drank a whole glass of water. The pediatrician came in blowing bubbles and Livi perked up a little.

The test results came back fine. All of her counts were fine, no urinary tract infection. The fevers seemed to be just a virus. We were told to take her home and rotate Tylenol and Motrin and do lots of fluids.

This picture is from my camera phone. Denise took another picture with my camera, but I haven't taken them off yet.

I have a few "Thank yous" to make:

• Cici - Thanks for your quick call to the pediatrician and for hanging out with us at the hospital.
• Uncle Joe - for keeping Juli busy with Katie and getting her ready for bed.
• Uncle Frankie - for picking up Nonna and Karen where I left them.
• Nonna - for bringing Juli home and getting her to bed.

Goodbye Tonsils

Juli finally got those horrible tonsils out yesterday. Here she is getting in the car to go to the hospital. Yeah, that looks like a nervous smile... can't say I blame her. I'm sure mine wouldn't have been much better right then.

After what seemed like forever we were finally in triage. In our bed area, they had a video game system. Juli was excited and wanted to play a game. Unfortunately football was the game that was on. She lost interest quickly!

She got to change into some hospital issue PJs.

James and Juli just waiting around.

Sandy and Juli.

They gave Juli some "silly juice" to help relax her and sedate her in order to ease the separation anxiety and help her when she went back to the operating room. She fought us on taking it, but once it was down, she was happy. Actually she was downright silly.

Everything was funny and she kept giggling and playing around. After a while she did get tired and just layed down and smiled a lot.

Here is her message to the doctor, while hopped up on "silly juice."

This is what Juli looked like when I found her in recovery, although this picture was taken when we first got to her room. A nurse was getting us settled when another one walked in. The second nurse goes, "Oh look, she's got T&A". James says, "T&A?". The nurse laughs and says, "Yeah, T&A Face, tonsils and adnoids..."

Thankfully that face went away and although still puffy and having a hard time talking Juli got progressively better as the day went on. She even found the energy to get on playhouse disney for a few minutes.

Later on that night she even ate a few bites of bread and some vanilla pudding.

I guess that was the boost she needed. Shortly after she wanted to go for a walk. Every nurse we passed loved her froggy robe and slippers with the little bells on them.

Juli had a pulse/oxygen monitor that they put on her toe. The light from the monitor made her toe glow bright red. We kept calling her rudolph the red toe girl or "glow-toe."

Later on we had some fun with play-doh. We made faces and pirate ships and tons of other stuff. She had a great time and it kept her mind off of her throat.

Just relaxing before bedtime.

This pretty face is MUCH better than the T&A face!!

She ate a little bit and drank enough so they let us go home this morning. I think being at home will be good for her. The nurses woke her every 4 hours for her medicine, which we will have to do also. They also woke her to take vitals, etc. in between. So needless to say Juli, James and I did not get much sleep last night!

We were discharged early this morning and with the exception of fighting us on medicines, Juli is doing good! She drank plenty today. She also ate a bunch. Tonight for dinner she wanted pizza, so we got her a white slice from Peace a Pizza and she ate 1/4 to 1/2 of the slice. She also had a full container of yogurt, some ice cream and plenty of other soft stuff. She also played outside for a while and had a great time watching thousands of bubbles, thanks to the bubble machine Mom Mom bought for her.

We made it through the first two days. The doctor said days 3-5 are usually the worst. Hopefully she will continue to do as well as she has been.

Livi Got Her Tubes

Livi did great. We went in at 8:30 and went back to the room. They asked some questions and I changed her into her gown. They took her back at 9:03 and by 9:20 the doc came out and told me it went well. He said they sucked and sucked and sucked gobs and gobs of stuff out of both ears, so she should start to feel better almost immediately.

The worst part was recovery. I went back and she was screaming and reaching for me. Once I took her she was switching between being calm and screaming. They said that happens b/c they get scared and confused from the anesthesia. Usually they calm down at home. She drank a little apple juice and they let us go. It was VERY fast.

Julianna's First X-rays

When Juli woke up this morning, I stood her on the floor and she said, "I can't walk."

I said, "What do you mean you can't walk?"

"My foots hurt."

"You can walk, come in the kitchen and get your vitamin." She loves her Flinstones vitamins, so I figured she would come. She started to cry. She said she couldn't walk again. I tried to get her to walk into the kitchen and get her vitamin so I could see if she really couldn't walk. She didn't move. I even offered her m&ms. She never budged. She eventually took my mom's hand and walked into the kitchen. She limped. So she could walk, she just didn't want to because it hurt. I tried to get her to walk some more to see if she was being her usual drama queen self. She kept right on limping. Always on the same foot. She just wanted to sit down. At one point she even tried to crawl to something she wanted rather than walking. This nearly broke my heart.

If you know Juli, you know she is anything but a sit-down type of kid. She bounces off walls from the moment she wakes up, until the second she goes to bed. I knew something was wrong. I called the pediatrician who told me to bring her in at 9 as soon as the office opened. We got there at 8:55 and were taken right back. The doctor (Lynn) came in and checked her out. She watched her walk and she was definitely limping. Juli kept changing what foot hurt and sometimes saying both hurt. I asked the doctor if she thought it could be that she just knows it hurts when she walks and isn't sure where the pain is coming from. She said it's possible.

Lynn thought that since Juli could stand on it and walk on it, it wasn't broken or fractured. The only thing she was concerned about would be if it was a hairline fracture that she couldn't feel from examining her. She said we would have to go get x-rays. She said she thought most likely it was a sprain/strain and that if the x-rays came back negative, we would treat it as such. It could also be from a virus.

So we got the script for the x-rays and off we went. Her are some pictures of today (courtesy of my camera phone - so handy.)

The culprits


Waiting to get registered.


Getting registered


Eating raisins while waiting our turn in Radiology

While we were waiting in Radiology to be called back there was a little boy there with his mom and another family member who was back getting something scanned. I think he name was Kevin. He was 3 years old and he came over and started talking to Juli. He wanted her to get up and play with him. Since she couldn't he danced and did tricks and flips for her while she laughed and clapped for him. Needless to say they kept the rest of the waiting room entertained as well. At one point he came over to hug her and he had really curly hair. She started patting his head and said, "Mommy, look at his hair!" I said, "Yes, Jule, it's curly." She said, "Mine's not curly." I said, "No, yours is straight." At which point the little boy patted her head and said, "It's cute!". LOL, more laughter from the audience. Shortly after that his family was ready to leave, so his mom told him to say goodbye. They both pouted and said goodbye, then he came over and hugged her. {Insert "Awww" from audience here}. Then he leaned in and planted a kiss on her face! LOL {Insert more "Awwws" here}.

Right after that, the x-ray technician came over and asked Juli about her Billy. For those of you that don't know, it's the ratty little lamb (well, one of 6 of them - don't ask) that Juli goes to bed with. Billy is her lovey. She asked Juli if she was ready to get her picture taken and then asked if Billy wanted get his picture taken too. This made Juli feel a little better and this made her like the tech. She was great with Juli! Here they are:

Juli on the x-ray table


Her scared-to-be-up-on-the-table version of cheese

After the x-rays we went back to the doctor's office to wait. After a while the doctor said radiology was so crowded, that even though she ordered the results STAT, they wouldn't get them until like 2pm. While we were waiting I noticed Juli was starting to feel warm. I told the doctor and she said that she wouldn't be suprised, and that it could mean it was viral.

Around 2:30 they called to tell us the x-rays looked good and showed no fractures. They want to see her back tomorrow morning to check on things and make sure she is ok. Hopefully this virus goes away quickly and we have no more walking problems.