One Crazy Day!

Annie always keeps my life exciting, and yesterday was no exception.  I took her to a combined orthotist/orthopedist appointment today--left the house at 8:30am.  (I lucked out being able to combine two appointments into one, fortunately.)  So this morning Annie got her third pair of AFOs since her ankle surgery.  Fortunately, they seem to fit wonderfully and are MUCH easier to put on.  Standard AFOs just weren't working for her even before surgery, but we thought her surgery would make it so she could wear standard AFOs.  It took two pair to learn that she still can't, so this third pair is the "turbo" style with an inner boot that makes them not only more comfortable, but much easier to get on.  So yea for that! 

We then met with Annie's orthopedist for another post-op follow-up on her ankle.  Everything is looking good, but she said we need to be much more aggressive with her stretching.  Her ankle seems to have very limited range of motion, so repeated stretching throughout the day will help with that and insure that we're not back in the OR for another heel cord lengthening any time soon.

I then took Annie to school around 10:45am, went home and Justin went to work (he had been home with Molly and Lexie while I was out with Annie.)  However, at 11:30, the school called to tell me that Annie had been seizing and vomiting for the past 30 minutes and I needed to come pick her up.  She has been vomiting inconsistently since last Sunday, but had no other symptoms.  But with this going on so long now,  I decided to first call the pediatrician, hoping we could go straight there from the school, but didn't have such luck.

So I loaded up Molly and Lexie to go get Annie from school, got home, fed the girls lunch, changed Annie, gave her meds, and put Lexie down to nap.  Then at 1:30, after having to wake Lexie from her nap, I loaded all 3 girls into the van again to take Annie to the pediatrician.  I wasn't worried about having the other girls there since the pediatrician's office is so entertaining for them--I just had no idea what it was going to turn in to.  The pediatrician checked out Annie and cathed her to check for a UTI.  The UA came back negative, but we'll get the culture results in a couple of days.  The doctor then thought she should have some blood work done to check her pancreas and liver and CBC.  But since Annie's veins are so bad and she is sometimes nearly impossible to stick, the pediatrician asked us to go to the lab at the children's hospital where they have more experience with difficult veins.

I thought it'd be best to go straight there while we were already out for the day, but knew it would probably be a long wait and difficult with Lexie and Molly especially so late in the afternoon.  I called Justin at work just to let him know what was going on, and he kindly said he would meet me at the hospital to help out.  It took about 25 minutes to drive up there, 15 minutes to register, and then we had to wait over 30 minutes to get into the lab.  I was SO thankful to have Justin there to help entertain and distract Molly and Lexie!  Once I got Annie into the lab, I started pulling up Annie's sleeves and explaining to the phlebotomist that Annie is a really difficult stick, when she interrupted me and said all they need is a finger poke!  I couldn't believe it!  We drove all that way, and waited for so long, just to have them do a finger poke that could have been done at the doctor's office!

So we left a little frustrated, exhausted, and running out of patience with our hungry and tired children.  Luckily there was a Wendy's close by.  By the time we got home around 5:45pm, the pediatrician had already called and left a message saying that Annie's blood work had all been normal except for a slightly elevated white blood cell count.  Unless her urine culture comes back positive, we're guessing she's just gotten some kind of stomach bug or cold that's making her gag and throw up. After our long day, we had everyone in bed by 6:30!

Today Annie seems to be doing fine as long as we don't give her pediasure. So we're just pushing other fluids to help keep her hydrated. She's having more seizures, but I think that's because her body is so out of whack and she's probably been vomiting up her meds. She's at home today simply because I don't want to make her teachers cope with more vomit or seizures. She's actually pretty happy and smiley.  So we should have a somewhat calm day today, and our in-home nurse is coming tonight to give us a break.  And we just hope Annie will be back to her normal self soon.