Having kids totally changed my life! As a foster parent, it changes with one phone call. (see my first call to foster) We have had more than our fair share of doctor visits and even hospital stays. The most recent – last week…
Oh Amanda is hosting a weekly Top Ten Tuesday, so I thought that this week I would list some of my most memorable visits to health care professionals in the last couple of years.
Before I list this Top Ten – let me first introduce you to the cast of characters:
- Bubba (hey we ARE in Texas) – my teenage stepson
- Stinkpot – our 2-yr-old that we adopted through foster care
- Lil Bit – our 9-month-old foster baby
Without further ado – MY TOP TEN DOCTOR VISITS SINCE I’VE HAD KIDS
- My broken toe – Okay, not a doctor visit for the kids, but I did break my toe as my kids rode on my lap down a water slide the day of Stinkpot’s adoption.
- Bubba’s 3-day EEG after having a seizure at school – He was taped up like a lobotomy patient so that the wires would stay glued on his head. Quite a sight! Lots of stares! He showed up for his first day of work at McDonald’s like this – he was obviously sent home! This very expensive test gave no indication of the cause of his seizures. He has another one scheduled next month. This time we will buy him a new video game to “beat” and allow him to stay up as long as he wants. [his previous seizures occurred after spending a weekend at his mom’s unstructured home life]
- Stinkpot’s first stay in the hospital – This 3-day visit was so frightening. First because the onset was so SUDDEN (crawling 1 minute then he couldn’t wake up). The doctors first thought it was meningitis -there had been a few cases in the area- I hated watching the spinal tap -thankfully not meningitis. Second, since the chest x-ray was clear for 2 days, the doctors were thinking something much more serious, like leukemia. On the 3rd day the chest x-ray showed pneumonia. He finally recovered and was sent home, but we were physically and emotionally exhausted!
- Stinkpot’s 2nd stay in the hospital for pneumonia – At a doctor visit for high fever, his oxygen level had dropped down to 82% and he was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. He LOVED it! He enjoyed the gurney ride as much as a buggy ride and was grinning and waving at everyone with the oxygen mask on him.
- Stinkpot’s visit to the pediatric pulmonologist – After 2 hospital stays, the insurance company actually contacted me to discuss Stinkpot’s breathing problems. The insurance company wanted me to take him to an allergist; however, an allergist would not see him until he was at least 4 years old. So the insurance company suggested a pediatric pulmonologist. Stinkpot’s primary care physician wouldn’t give me a referral so I had to have the insurance company contact the doctor to get this done. The pulmonologist looked at his chest x-ray and said that his chest was so full of fluid that he would be diagnosed with pneumonia again if he was running a fever (he wasn’t). The pulmonologist put him on a regimen of Singulair, Nasonex, and Zyrtec – he hasn’t been sick since!!!!
- Lil Bit’s 1st stay in the hospital
- Lil Bit’s 1st visit to the ER
- Lil Bit’s 2nd stay in the hospital for bronchialitis
- My allergic reaction to the flu shot
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| Impetigo |
- Last week’s doctor visit for Lil Bit’s impetigo – a mosquito bite on Saturday evening gradually got worse and was oozing pus by the next evening. Impetigo is a staph infection – the worst part is that when I saw this picture I realized that the baby got it from ME!!! I thought the rash was another reaction from the flu shot. After seeing how quickly that mosquito bite turned bad, I can see now how it can be deadly in a hospital setting.
- Honorable mention goes to LICE! Even though there was no doctor visit, I had 2 kids taken out of school until we got rid of those critters. Although it doesn’t really belong on this list…I’d rather catch vomit on me than deal with lice again. That was the absolute WORST!!!
Y’all have a great week staying HEALTHY!!!!
Hugs!
