Another one bites the dust (no pun intended)

Guess who lost another tooth?  

Emily now has a pretty big gap on the bottom.  That tooth has been wiggly since she lost the first one, but seemed to be hanging on pretty well. When I got Emily out of bed yesterday, I noticed that the tooth looked a bit odd. She has been pushing on it with her tongue and it was finally ready to come out.  Of course, I didn't pull the tooth because I am a big baby about that stuff.  Mike pulled it during their time together in the evening. 

When she lost her first tooth, Mike and I debated about what to do about it. We do not do Santa or the Easter Bunny so it didn't make sense to us to do the Tooth Fairy either. Plus, Emily couldn't care less about getting money.  So we decided to get a celebratory cupcake instead.   

Emily's dentist might not appreciate that, but Emily sure did.

Surgery Day

Well, today was surgery day for Emily.  We took her to Children's to have the chalazion on her left eye lid removed. 

To prep for this day, I had to take Emily to the pediatrician for a physical.  We had not seen our doctor since Emily's 4 year old well visit (we saw a different doc for her well visit this past year).  Needless to say, he was completely shocked at how much she has grown since then.  Everything went well with the physical.  The only thing he was concerned about was Emily's loose tooth.  He said that I should not be surprised if she came out of surgery with one less tooth (he said they sometimes pull them while the child is "out" just to make sure it didn't get knocked out by a breathing tube).

Last night, we had to stop Emily's feeding pump around 11pm and then we gave her some water until about 3am.  We had to be at the hospital at 6:15am.  The drive to Children's takes about 45 minutes, so that means we had to get up EARLY!  Mike took the day off to come with us.  Thankfully, Emily is not a kid that gets cranky when you wake her up.  She was groggy for a bit, but by the time we were in the car, she was happy as could be. 

After checking in, we were taken back to a room to prep for the surgery.  Emily laid on a stretcher and watched Disney Junior while we talked with the nurse, the doctor, and the anesthesiologist.  She was pretty relaxed and happy.  She had to change into a gown, but had some heated blankets on her so she didn't seem to mind. 

At around 7:45am we headed to the OR.  We picked watermelon flavored "sleepy air" for Emily.  We played Gloworm (we never go anywhere without Gloworm!), held her hand and talked to her for a few minutes.  It didn't take long for her to fall asleep.  Then we kissed her and went to the waiting room while she went into surgery.  The surgery was scheduled for about 30 minutes, so we didn't have long to wait.

We got to chat with the doctor afterwards and she told us that everything went well.  She said "there is no way that thing was going to go away on its own".  Since we had tried just about everything to get rid of it in the past 6 months, I was not surprised to hear that.  She also got rid of one that was starting to form on Emily's lower eye lid.  She gave us some ointment to put on Emily's eye and talked us through some other post-op instructions.

Then we waited a few more minutes before we could go back to see Emily.  She was still really groggy and had a patch over her eye.  She did not seem happy about that at all!  She was pretty whiny and kind of out of it.  The nurse removed the patch and that made Emily really mad.  She did not like having the tape removed, but once she got over that, she seemed really happy to have the patch off.  I, on the other hand, started to feel really queasy at that point.  Her eye was pretty swollen and red and she had some blood coming out of her eye.  I don't handle that kind of stuff well.  I had to sit down for a few minutes while Mike comforted Emily.  I felt a little silly, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I am a big baby - what can I say?

We gave Emily some Pedialyte while we were there and included some Tylenol.  We only gave her a couple of ounces just to make sure we didn't upset her stomach.  She seemed to tolerate it OK, so we started to get her ready to leave.  The nurse had to remove an IV from her foot and that did not make our girl happy either (who can blame her?).  The nurse said they had to stick her about 4 times to get the IV in, so we will notice some bruises (and she does have a couple of good ones).  Unfortunately, Emily has thin wiggly veins just like her Mama!  And she still has that loose tooth - they did not need to pull it. 

Once Emily was dressed and in her wheelchair, she was completely calm.  I think she just wanted to go home.  Since we got home, she has been doing pretty well.  A bit more whiny than usual, but we expected that.  Her eye is looking better and better as time goes on and the discharge is slowing down too.  She has been tolerating her formula pretty well, although we have given her a bit less than normal.  She cannot throw up, so we don't want to push too hard and get her stomach upset.  So we will just take it slow and keep an eye on her.  So far so good.

A big day!

Guess who lost her first tooth!?!

When I took Emily to the dentist for her checkup and cleaning back in March, the hygienist mentioned that her two bottom teeth were just starting to get a little bit loose.  She said we probably had some time before they were ready to fall out.  She figured it would take a while because Emily doesn't eat a lot by mouth and what she does eat is soft.  Well, Emily is not one to follow other people's schedules!

This morning when I got her out of bed, her bottom tooth was at a bizarre angle.  She kept pushing against it with her tongue and you could see it wiggling.  I attempted to get it out, but wasn't able to get it.  To be honest, I was a little freaked out by it.  I am a big baby, I admit it!  I fed her breakfast and just kept an eye on the tooth.  I was paranoid that she would swallow it.     

When Mike got home from a morning prayer meeting, I told him about the tooth and he pulled it out.  He said it was barely hanging on at that point.  Guess all of my attempts with the tooth just loosened it for him. ha!  Emily had a small amount of blood in her mouth, but that was it.

It took FOREVER for her baby teeth to come in, so I figured she would lose them late.  Guess not! My baby girl is growing up! 

Some recent developments

I am still trying to find and upload pics for some overdue update posts.  In the meantime, I figured I would share some recent events. 

Health-wise, poor Emily has been through the ringer lately.  She is a trooper and has handled it all in stride, but the poor kid needs a break!  Thankfully, she hasn't had to deal with anything serious, just a bunch of little things.

I had a cold a couple of weeks ago and shared my germs with Emily.  We both had runny noses, coughing and congestion. She missed school and therapy for a few days, so we got to spend even more time together.  Nice way to keep all the germs in one place!  The cold decided to stick around for quite a while.  Emily still has a bit of a cough.  It normally takes her a while to work through congestion anyway, but this cold really doesn't want to let go!  Each day gets better, thankfully.

Back in October, we noticed a bump on Emily's left eyelid.  It looked like she had a bug bite on her eye that swelled up.  We asked the pediatrician about it at her annual checkup.  We were told to put moist warm compresses on her eye and to follow up with the eye doctor if we got concerned about it.  After a couple of weeks, I spoke with a nurse at the eye doctor's office.  She told me to do moist warm compresses as often as possible.  She also suggested that I put baby shampoo on a cotton ball and scrub her eyelid with it (to be honest, I didn't even attempt that).  Then, we saw the eye doctor in December and was told the same thing...warm compresses.

Emily still has this bump on her eye.  If you run your finger across the lid, it feels like a hard pea.  We have continued with the warm compresses multiple times a day and the bump did get smaller at one point, but then started to get bigger.  So we made another appointment with the eye doctor.  The bump is called a chalazion.  It is basically a blocked oil gland.  Even though the bump has been there for almost 6 months, and the compresses have made little difference, the doctor was not at all concerned. She said they can go away on their own.  I don't really see that happening at this point.  We have surgery scheduled in May, but in the meantime, the doctor has given us some new instructions: hold a peeled hard-boiled egg on her eye instead of the moist warm compresses.  The egg holds the heat longer than a wash cloth and may shrink the chalazion.  If that works, then the surgery can be canceled.  We shall see...

Here is a picture from Easter that really shows the bump (follow the arrow in the picture).  It looks terrible, but doesn't seem to bother Emily at all. 

About 2 weeks ago, I noticed a spot on Emily's side near her rib cage.  It was pale in the middle and more red around the edges.  It was about the size of the tip of my index finger.  I was worried that it could be a bed sore or pressure sore, so I asked one of her therapists.  She told me it did not look like any pressure sore she had ever seen.  I was relieved to hear that, but still had no idea what it was.  We started putting some antibacterial ointment on it and a week later it still looked the same.  I called the pediatrician and was told to try an anti fungal cream.  We tried that for a few days and still didn't notice any difference.  As a matter of fact, I noticed a rash spreading all over Emily. 

So, I took her to the pediatrician Tuesday morning.  We found out that she has pityriasis rosea.  The doctor showed me some pictures in a book and Emily's marks looked exactly the same as the pictures.  There was no doubt that the diagnosis was correct. The rash can last 6-8 weeks and there is no treatment.  We just have to wait for it to go away on it's own.  It doesn't seem to bother her at all and it is not contagious.  So that is good.

On top of all that (or maybe because of it), Emily had 2 seizures this weekend.  She typically has about 1 seizure a month.  They are usually very mild and last about a minute.  On Saturday, after her bath, she had a 1 minute seizure, so I figured that was her one for the month.  Then on Monday morning, when I got her out of bed, she had a 2-3 minute seizure.  It kind of freaked me out!  That is long for her and I was starting to wonder if I was going to have to get some rescue meds to make the seizure stop.  I felt so helpless just watching it happen and knowing that I could not stop it!  What an awful feeling!  She was a bit dazed after the seizure, but then she was perfectly fine.  She went to school and had a great day.

Through all of this, she has been in a great mood and happy as can be.  Nothing gets her down.  She really is a trooper!  Hopefully as the weather warms up, things will quiet down.  We sure hope so.