Mother Hoodwink

On we go...

Josh is doing a lot better. He's home and pumped full of antibiotics and pain medication. The same stuff I got when I had my c-section. Same dosage and everything. Yes. What I got for major surgery, he also got for some poison oak. If you want some nice pain killers, don't do go through the hassle of childbirth. Just go roll in some poison oak people. You can go here to read Josh's story in his own hilarious words.

Just to lighten the mood around here I'm putting up a video of Gavin we made yesterday in Photo Booth. Don't be frightened by the headless man sitting behind him. Thanks again for all the comments and emails everyone.

Gavin in Photo Booth

Update 3

We still don't know too much. Josh ended up staying the night at the hospital. He was finally given a room around midnight. He's been emailing me photos and he looks a lot better. Only a tiny bit of swelling left. He was given another dose of meds through his IV. He supposed to talk to a dermatologist and we'll see when he gets to go home.

I have to say that I'm glad he has an iPhone. He's been occupying himself by taking pictures of everything around him and sending them to me. For instance I got this one this morning titled "Rock! I have a sexy toilet.":

And "Sadly, I'm thankful for today's plan. :( ":

Poor guy.

*While typing this Josh called and let me know that he talked to the dermatologist and he gets to go home this afternoon. He wasn't quite sure if what Josh had was a staph infection but is convinced that he is highly allergic to poison ivy/oak. The ER nurse forgot to get a blood sample from him before they she started the antibiotics IV. Josh said she was eight months pregnant so he's not too mad at her. He remembers all to well how stupid I got during my pregnancies. He overheard the head nurse chewing her out. Without a blood sample they can't test for anything. So going by Josh's skin, the doctor thinks it was more of a severe reaction to the poison ivy/oak.

PS I'm still pissed at the military clinic. I don't want to post pictures of Josh but if you had seen him as a medical professional, you would have sent him to the ER immediately. Not given him some ointment and pills that did nothing and sent him on his way. Josh has vowed to just go straight to the ER if something that severe happens to him again. Kind of funny that Josh is currently working towards being a Navy nurse officer. After this semester he'll be done with his requirements for nursing school and will be applying for a program that will send him to nursing school at the Navy's expense while getting his paycheck. Then when he graduates he'll be an officer. I'm sure he now has some goals to change a few things within the smaller clinics.

Update 2

Josh has been in the ER for about six hours now. He's finished his IV of Benadryl and some steroid. He's been emailing pictures of himself and he looks a lot better. A lot of the swelling is gone which mean his face is dripping with pus. Sorry that was gross. But it's a good thing. He feels a lot better.

Last night Josh noticed a red dot on each of his wrists and was worried whatever he had was moving there. He emailed me a picture one of his wrists and said it was starting to pus. He showed the nurse and she said it looked like poison ivy. It hit me.

The day before this bike ride of doom that led to this "rash", we had been at the park up the street to take family photos. My mom was in town and took some pictures for us. They were all taken in this really cool tunnel of trees. I have a few of Gavin in my Flickr set.

At the entrance of the tree tunnel there were pretty tree limbs hanging down. I looked at it for a nanosecond to determine if it was poison ivy and it didn't look like it to me. There's a lot of it on this base so it's always in the back of my mind when Gavin is playing in nature. I thought the hanging limbs would like nice in the photo so Josh stood next to them.

I don't know what posion oak looked like so I Googled it really quick to compare it to our family picture. Tell me what you think.

Poison Oak:

Us the day before The Rash (Look to the right of Josh.)(Sorry for the crappy quality. I had to zoom in a lot in order to see it.):

Looks like it to me. Plus right after this my mom and I went out. Josh took the kids for a bike ride. He took them around the perimeter of the base where there is poison ivy/oak everywhere. He figured it would be fine since he was wearing jeans and the kids were in the covered bike trailer. The next day is when he rode his bike to class and hooked his bike helmet though the spokes of his tires.

I emailed Josh these pictures and the next time he saw his nurse he showed her the pictures and she said that only cemented in her mind that he had poison ivy/oak. It got infected and turned into a staph infection. See?! I was right! He had all the symptoms of a staph infection. I just figured it was MRSA since everything I read told me that if you get a staph infection when you haven't been in a hospital or spend time with someone who has, then it's most likely MRSA. Turns out that info is wrong. You can get staph anytime.

Three nurses congregated in his ER room discussed all of this with him. They asked if anyone in his family has this bad of a reaction to poison ivy/oak. Josh suddenly remembered that his brother had it really bad once and his sister was hospitalized for it when she was younger. 

He's still waiting on his test results and to see a doctor. They don't think he'll have to stay overnight. Since we have small children, they plan on giving him an antibiotic to take for a few days just to make sure the infection dies.

Thank you for all the good thoughts.

Update

Josh went to his appointment this morning. His face had swollen even more though the night. He was able to see the Captain. For the non-military, it's the second highest rank in the Navy. Unless you count every star an Admiral has. If you do, then it's the fifth highest rank after the 1,2,3 and 4 star Admirals.

Anyways, this Captain checks him out and Josh says he was awesome. Very through and good bedside manner. In my last post I sort of went off on military medical people. While there is definitely a flaw in the system, most of the actual doctors and nurses are great. It's the medical assistants and physician helpers that are left with too much responsibility and given tasks they would never be allowed to do in the civilian world. Such as making diagnoses and writing prescriptions.

I've only ever seen one medical doctor myself. A gynecologist when we lived in Virginia and he was one of the best OBGYNs I have ever had. I also saw a "doctor" [read medical assistant] who was horrible with me. Said that I needed to lose weight to get pregnant and I was still young so it was ok that my period was irregular. (I was 22. Old enough to be regular.) She begrudgingly handed over a referral for a fertility specialist. Turns out I had a wonky thyroid that was causing the extra weight and PCOS that was causing the irregularity. They just don't have enough education to be diagnosing people.

The captain told Josh he was almost positive he had dissecting cellulitis. He couldn't call it for sure since the bonehead guy who was dealing with Josh never took a fucking blood sample from him so they could run tests. I don't have a link for it because I can't find anything with a substantial amount of information. From what I've gathered, it doesn't look like it to me. I know, I know. I'm not a doctor. Dr. Google said that it usually affects the scalp and causes alopecia. There are also horrible boils/"nodules" which he doesn't have. I couldn't find information about it causing severe swelling. The Captain did say that it looked contagious and to make sure to keep an eye out for rashes on the kids.

Josh was told to go to the ER. They want to keep him overnight to observe him and give him an IV of antibiotics. I feel so bad. I just dropped him off at the entrance, told him I loved him and asked him not to die. An emergency room isn't a place for healthy children to be and there really isn't anyone I can ask to watch them. Considering that most of Josh's co-workers are working tomorrow and all the other spouses I know have kids of their own. I really am on my own here.

I just got off the phone with him and he is going to start his IV of Benadryl soon. He's hoping that he'll be able to catch some of the debate tonight before he's completely knocked out. He still hasn't seen a doctor or had his blood drawn yet. Hopefully, whatever he has will go away quickly and he'll be back home tomorrow. Thanks for the good thoughts and prayers. They're much appreciated.

I am shaking, I am so angry!

Monday night Josh rode his bicycle to school. One of the campuses is right down the street from the base. He left his bike helmet strapped to his bike while he was in class. When he came home he mentioned that his face itched and said that he probably got bit by a bug on his way home. He did have a few red bumps. We didn't think anything of it. We settled in and watched the three hour premier of "Heroes." He wanted to take a shower and clean his face but we got finished watching TV so late and he was tired.

The next morning he said he was itching his face all night and he went and got ready for work. Meaning he washed his face with a cleanser, shaved and used after shave. Throughout the day his face got redder and redder and started to spread down to his neck. I told him to go to medical in the morning.

Let me just explain military medicine for a moment. Basically it sucks. The doctors and nurses don't give a shit about you. Josh likes to say all they do is "put out fires." They don't do follow ups. They simply don't care. They treat people like cattle. The only way military medicine is good, is when you get a referral to see a civilian doctor. Then you get the benefits of having someone who truly cares about your health since they don't want to be sued and it's all free. Plus they hand out tests and ultrasounds like candy since they know our insurance will cover it. The military doctors are too lazy to give out referrals I guess. Luckily for me and the kids, we are stationed on a fairly small base. The clinic here doesn't see dependents, only active duty. The kids and I get great doctors who personally call us to give us our test results.

Back to Josh. He went to medical the two days after his bike ride. We figured maybe someone tampered with his bike helmet and put something on it or maybe it was really dirty and irritated his skin. Which I doubted since it came on so fast. He rides his bike every day. If it were just a dirty strap, his face wouldn't have gotten so bad so fast.

After medical he went back to work and then came home for lunch. His face was now swollen. The "doctor" had given him some ointment and sent him on his way. Josh thought maybe he was allergic to the ointment. As the day went on, it got more and more swollen and now started to leak clear pus. I took pictures to document this but I'll spare you. I told him to go back to medical again in the morning.

When he woke up this morning, part of his chest right under his neck was swollen as well. He went to medical and the "doctor" told him he had a "face infection." What the hell is that? How does one get infection of the face. He had no answers and instead gave Josh two antibiotics to kill it. I asked what rank this guy was and he said he was a civilian physicians helper. What?! Not even military? At the military clinic? More importantly, not even a doctor?!

All day I have been trying to Google and figure out what the hell this is. I've been busy with the kids. I didn't want Josh to get too close to them and he's been sleeping a lot in our bedroom so I haven't had much time to sit at the computer. When they went to bed, I glued myself to my laptop.

I looked up everything. I've looked at more pictures of swollen faces than I care to remember and been quizzing Josh on all of his symptoms. I was almost positive he had MRSA which is a type of Staph infection. I looked up the antibiotics that Josh was given and one of them fights a few things. All of those things are ailments that Josh obviously doesn't have. One thing it does fight is, you guessed it, MRSA. I am fucking livid!

That doctor prescribed Josh with antibiotics knowing he had a fucking staph infection and said NOTHING to him. We have a two year old and an infant in this house. MRSA is highly contagious. At this moment I am typing this with blurry vision as I have tears streaming down my face. MRSA could be deadly to an infant and child. I am petrified.

Josh has another appointment tomorrow morning with this "doctor." I am no doctor (but neither is this guy) but if it turns out that this is what Josh has, I am going to the clinic and demanding to have a word with the highest ranking person that works there. This is absolutely unacceptable. To not even warn him of the potential risk of giving this to our children is completely irresponsible.  If I had known I wouldn't have let Josh change Maggie's diaper or let Gavin hug him or even have had him sit at the table with us for dinner.

Most military medical staff are horrible in my opinion. One of Josh's co-workers went to a military doctor and it took months for him to finally be diagnosed with leukemia. He had all the signs but he had shitty military doctors.

It's a little past midnight as I write this. Josh wants to go to the emergency room tonight. There he will at least be seen by a real doctor and given some tests. He's going to see if he can make it through the night without wanting to rip his face off.

Please keep us in your prayers. I'm so scared for my babies.

Something for Nothing

Last week I was doing some online Christmas shopping for the kids. I was browsing through Amazon for pretend food and kitchen stuff since Gavin loves cooking now. I came across this Melissa & Doug sandwich set for only a penny! It's normally a twenty dollar item. I thought maybe they had an overstock of it and were trying to get rid of it. I quickly bought it before it sold out. After I finalized my order I noticed some more stuff was only a penny. I bought everything I saw. About fifteen items. I finalized my order before I realized that almost all of the Melissa & Doug products were a cent. I made a third order. I spent a total of $43.27 in shipping, taxes and of course the pennies it cost. The order should have cost me over $300.

I knew it was a glitch but was hoping that the law I heard about was really true. The law that says if an online store offers a certain price, no matter how cheap, they have to honor it if you bought it. I know the guy that bought a huge plasma TV off Amazon the other day for $35 was hoping it was true. Josh found his story on some message board when he was researching this Amazon glitch. He said he would sue if they canceled his order. Wonder what happened with that guy?

I knew if I made it to this past Monday, when the items were to be shipped, I was in the clear. This past Monday I got an email from the VP of sales of the merchant that was selling through Amazon. He told me it was obviously a glitch and in compensation he would allow me to keep one thing from my order with free overnight shipping and give me a $20 Amazon gift card.

I don't even know if that law is real. I don't have the money to sue anyone and I'm pretty sure a judge would throw it out since I was basically stealing. I mean 21 cents for over $300 worth of toys? I wasn't too upset that my orders were canceled. So I accepted his offer.

I thought I was done with Christmas shopping in September. How awesome that would have been. Oh well, at least I got one present for the kids so far.

Sleep Training and Poop

I'm having such a fun time watching Maggie's personality emerge. To see who she is as a person and how different she is from Gavin. Gavin was an extremely easy baby. He had a pretty tight schedule but if he was thrown off it for a day or two, it was no big deal. He didn't care. He was and still is a very go with the flow type person.

Maggie is vastly different. She's a fairly easy baby too but she loves and craves her schedule. She notices if her feeding time is twenty minutes later than normal. She notices and then proceeds to scream at me until I feed her.

The other day we had a hectic day and Gavin had lunch two hours late. We didn't hear a peep about it from him or see a behavioral change.

Since Maggie is a bit, ok, a lot more needy than Gavin is, I thought she would have a really hard time with sleep training. I was right.

Gavin was going to sleep on his own by the third night we started it. He whined for a few seconds and conked out. Maggie put up more of a fight.

*Before I get into this, I know that sleep training is controversial. I'm not a bad mother or unloving mother because I chose to do it. We did it with Gavin and it did not make him a mean child who can't trust us. He's the most affectionate little boy I have ever met. He's two years old and when we say it's time for bed, he grabs his bear, runs to his room, gets under the covers and asks for a story. After some hugs and kisses, he goes to sleep. I have a feeling Maggie will be the same way. I think the earlier children fall asleep on their own, the better off they are. My babies won't remember when they cried because they wanted to be rocked to sleep. They surely will remember the hysteria when they're five though. If you choose not to do it then good for you. If you choose to do it then good for you too. Everyone has their reasons for their parenting choices. We don't have to do everything the same. We can all agree that we are doing what's best for our children and that we love them. Moving on...*

We do sleep training very slowly. From what I've read you're supposed to put the baby in their crib drowsy and awake. If they begin to cry, let them cry for five minutes then go back in and comfort them without picking them up. Then do that every five minutes. The next night make the waiting period ten minutes.

That is all insane to me. That's way too much time to start off with and to make it double the very next night? No. Babies can get mighty worked up in just five minutes. Especially if it's the first time they cry for a long period of time without a parent comforting them.

The first night we let her cry for two minutes. It took an hour for her to finally go to sleep. This includes the minutes spent in there calming her down. We also didn't have to go in every two minutes. She would fall asleep for a little bit, wake up and then we would have to start all over again.

The next night we went into her room every three minutes. She fell asleep within a half hour.

We increased by a minute every night. The night we had to go in every five minutes, she had cried for maybe thirty seconds and went to sleep for the night.

Now she whines as I walk out the door but by the time I have the door closed, she's quiet.

This past week we finally had her taking naps in her crib. Usually I held her while she napped. I know. Crazy. I did the same with Gavin. I like to wait until the baby knows how to put themselves to sleep before I attempt naps in the crib. It's harder to learn how to fall asleep when sunshine is seeping through the cracks of the closed blinds.

This could all have been avoided if I had just put my newborn babies in their crib when they slept. But that would have meant that I couldn't have their tiny little selfs sleeping on my chest as I breathed their smell in and listened to them make cute sleeping baby noises. Definitely worth the agonizing few moments of listening to them cry as they figured out how to sleep without me rocking them.

Also, this week, a breakthrough. Gavin is now pooping in the potty full time. As opposed to his once a week trying to poop in the potty. The only diaper he wears is when he sleeps. I love not changing so-offensive-could-pass-for-adult poopy diapers. He wears underwear when we go out because he'll tell us if he needs to go. Since a car ride where he kept saying, "Go potty! Go potty!" for fifteen straight minutes, we've also learned that he for sure knows how to hold it.

I am enjoying the recent days of hands free naps and one less child to diaper.