Well, HAPPY NEW YEAR, my blog followers!
The last few months of 2012 were eventful, as usual. I'll try to give a "small" update.
Jaime got yet another ear infection in November. This was the second one of Fall and prompted a visit to the ENT. I was told that one of his ear tubes was in his canal and the other slanted upward in his ear drum...neither working at all. These ear infections mean that he has to get another set of ear tubes...this will be set #3. I'm kind of bummed that the second set barely lasted 6 months! :( While at the ENT, we talked about Jaime's night time coughing and coughing when he wakes up. Sometimes both ending in him gagging and throwing up. This prompted a visit to the pulmonologist. At the the pulm, they added/changed his medicine. He was put on 2 new inhalers and a reflux med. So, this regiment put him on 7 routine medications and he has like 10 PRN (as needed ones). Well, this didn't last. Jaime didn't tolerate the reflux med and then he got a respiratory infection. He was put on oral and inhaled steroids which made him a little better. (All the while Jared was fighting "ick" himself...in fact he got sick just before Thanksgiving and STILL has a junky nose and ear pain...4 antibiotics later.) We had a nice Christmas...and even a retirement party for my dad the day after...then Jaime got really bad. I was calling his pulmonologist, who happened to be on call the holiday weekend (thank God), late on a Friday night. The next day, Jaime got much worse and 2 hour routine aerosols weren't keeping his sats up and cough calm, so Jaime was admitted to the Cleveland Clinic. He was diagnosed with Influenza A. He spent 5 days in the hospital...including New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. He came home late on New Year's Day. He's been OK since then, but he also is home-bound again. No school for Jaime until the flu season settles down.
We went to the pulmonologist for a follow up this week...he had a great exam. We once again changed his meds...actually discontinuing 1 of them! Woohoo!!!! :) We talked about why Jaime didn't get the flu shot...you see Jared has a very bad egg allergy...he ALWAYS got the flu shot until he was 3 1/2 yrs old when he had a horrible allergic reaction to it. We went to the allergist and found out that Jared had an egg allergy. (This never happened in the past, so you know how mom's have that intuition that things happen because of other things? Well, I think the allergy was caused by the shot.) Well, anyway, because Jared reacted so badly to the shot, no one has been overly excited about injecting it into Jaime. This conversation prompted some immediate allergy testing. Jaime had his blood drawn earlier this week...what a trooper! He screams and cries, makes us all sweat holding him down, then says, "that wasn't too bad," followed by, "thank you for my needle." Melts our hearts! Well, yesterday the doctor called me back and said Jaime's labs were back...and....drum roll please...they are all NEGATIVE! WHAT? My kid has something NORMAL? Woohooooooooo!!!! They did some foods and all of the environmental allergies...NEGATIVE to ALL of them! I'm sooooooooooooo happy about this!
So, now we wait until the pulmonologist clears Jaime to go to the OR to get his ear tubes at which time they are planning on doing a bronchoscopy, egd, and endoscopy sleep study. Jaime likes to have surgery in the Spring and Fall, so I imagine that it will be a while before he goes, but I will certainly keep everyone up to date on when things actually get scheduled. I'm curious about the sleep study because his last one showed that he had mild sleep apnea and lately he seems to be having more and more apneas. He has a bad one last night that caused him to cough, gag and throw up (his entire day's worth of food) all over his room and the hall. Thank goodness for my awesome steam cleaner! I mean, the bedrooms and hall needed a good steam cleaning anyway! ;)
Well, that wasn't too bad of a post was it? Here's to an uneventful rest of winter and a fabulous 2013!!!!
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