Jessica’s 9 Months!

Offered her Cream of Wheat at breakfast (a first). She took one bite and spit it out. She proceeded to scarf down a few Fruity Cheerios Ritchie picked up for her last night. After eating about ten she gagged, coughed and they all came back up. Perfect.

Called the Dr’s office to schedule an appointment. Wondered if I’d waited too long when the nurse said “Is that her I hear wheezing in the background?” Uh yeah, you can hear that?

Dr’s office called back to see if I could bring her in right away.

Changed diaper and Jess spit up the apples I’d just fed her.

Arrived at office and noticed faint smell of dirty diaper, by the time we got into the exam room and I changed the said diaper it had turned into a diarrhea blowout. (This means Jess got to wear her ghetto emergency outfit today instead of the cute onesie her Aunt Shugee got her).

A total of 3 diarrhea diapers were changed today, making our week’s tally somewhere around 21.

After changing diaper and clothes poor Jess was less than enthusiastic about having all her vitals taken but she muscled through and only tried to twist off the exam table once.

Dr. diagnoses double ear infections and inflamed bronchioles (hence the wheezing). Here are a few of the gifts he offered her on this momentous day: -2 breathing treatments -1 steroid injection -3 prescription medications

He also suggested that we continue using the humidifier and that we get an air purifier. At this point I’m starting to think of Walter on Sleepless in Seattle.

Jessica endures the needle poke just fine but squeals as the medicine goes into her little bum cheek. I don’t blame her, poor sweet girl. I nurse her when it’s over and we head to the pharmacy.

After having her Rx faxed to our pharmacy, I buy her a little teether for her troubles because in addition to her illness she’s been trying to cut her two front teeth for the last week and she’s having a struggle. It ends up she’s more interested in the packaging than the teether.

We head over to the Imaging Center because the Dr. ordered a chest xray to be sure we’re not dealing with pneumonia and to make she she’s not aspirating spit up into her lungs.

Jess does surprisingly well with the chest xray. I’m impressed with her ability to sit still especially when she feels crummy.

We head to the pharmacy (just a few minutes from our house) to pick up our stuff. Jess falls asleep so I hit the drive through.

I’m greeted with news that our insurance doesn’t cover one of the Rx and it’ll be $120. I’m about to pay it when the Pharmacist suggests I call the dr to see if a covered drug could be substituted. Because I’m an advocate for our health, I call the insurance, get details, call the Dr. office to discuss options. The Dr. suggests that I just come back and pick up some samples he has. (At this point I will admit that I was tempted to just pay the $120 so I could go through the drivethrough Pharmacy and get Jess and I home. It occurs to me that this is a ridiculous idea despite the fact that I’ve needed to go to the bathroom for the last 1.5 hours so…) we head back to the Dr. office and I wake Jess up and we go get the medicine. Amazingly true to form, she smiles at everyone we see on the way in and out of the office.

I put her in the car one more time for the ride home. I’m very grateful that I brought along our ipod and speakers so she could listen to her favorite album “Rocketship Run” throughout this ordeal because that generally calms her down. Despite the fact that she’s trying to be happy, I can tell from her glassy eyes and tired body language that she’s hurting and the last 10 minutes of the drive are pretty rough.

We get home, I open up the prescriptions and get started with administration. We both end up wearing antibiotic and antihistamine. I think she ingested enough to help a little bit but hopefully not enough to cause the “blurry vision” which is listed as a possible side effect on a big blue sticker on the bottle.

I nurse her and get her settled. I realize I have a message from the Dr office. They’re concerned because Home Health has been trying to contact me to drop off a nebulizer and I haven’t been available. Well isn’t that the truth. So I call Home Health back and verify that I’ll be home for the rest of the day.

Amy shows up with a nebulizer (complete with car charger??) so that I can continue Jessica’s breathing treatments at home (4x daily) or in the car.

After doing 2 of said treatments I’m really grateful I didn’t have to pay $120 for the stuff. Jess won’t wear the little mask and she’s more interested in chewing on the tubing than inhaling anything. I’m hoping that holding it near her face counts for something because I’m pretty sure getting her worked up and crying won’t help with the wheezing.

Ritchie, who has been a tremendous help with this week’s excessive night-waking, comes home to fussy & tired baby and tired wife with honey-do list which he dutifully executes with a trip to Target.

One of the items he was to pick up was yogurt because Jessica threw up again after taking her medication and nursing. I had called the Dr office (again) and the Dr suggested calming her stomach with yogurt (he had previously told me to suspend all solids for the time being on account of her volatile stomach). I sure hope he knows what he’s talking about because I’ve only eaten yogurt 5 times since June.

As I’m feeding her the yogurt, I realize we did nothing to celebrate this 3/4 year mark so I grab one of her prescription papers, write 9 months on the back and have Ritchie snap a few quick photos of her eating yogurt. It’s a good thing Amy from Home Health brought over that nebulizer otherwise she wouldn’t have gotten any gifts as I forgot to give her the book I had for her.