PAYBACK!

Our mother's told Pat and I both we were in for it. That payback would get us... well, who has a walking 10 month old now? Yep...

All Jacob did yesterday was walk around. Nannie said he didn't even sit down once to just play with his toys, they were still neatly stacked against the wall downstairs when I returned home from work. Jacob, however was just walking around the house, around the living room into the dinning room, a romp through the kitchen. He even went outside and practiced his walking skills on the sidewalk. From one thing to the next, just seeing how far he could walk. We have a little explorer on our hands.

New Rash - Anyone Ever Heard of HSP?

Henoch-Schonlein Purpura {say "hen-awk shern-line purr-purr-ah"} or HSP is a type of vasculitis, a group of disorders that cause blood vessel inflammation. In HSP, the inflammation causes bleeding in the small blood vessels in your skin, joints, intestines and kidneys. The main symptom is a purplish rash, mainly on the lower legs and buttocks. HSP also often causes abdominal pain and aching joints, and in some people, kidney problems. The symptoms usually last for about 4 to 6 weeks.

The exact cause of HSP is unknown. Doctors think HSP happens when a person's immune system doesn't fight an infection like it's supposed to and frequently follows an infection of the throat or breathing passages. HSP itself isn't contagious. Although Henoch-Schonlein Purpura can affect anyone, it's most common in children and young adults. HSP usually improves on its own.

Now, doesn't that sound just lovely? This rash that I posted a picture of Sunday night got worse and completely covered from his hips down to his toes, arms and a little on the back of his neck Monday morning.

I really was hopeful that this rash was allergy related and not something like THIS! Jacob, I'm happy to report, is doing much better. He's been given an oral steroid and the rash is fading. His ankle and knee joints were pretty swollen and that has gone down tremendously. Although, last night they had started to swell up a little bit again, I'm sure that was just from the activity of the day. Jacob's a little clingy and whinny, wouldn't you be? He's on the two hour rotation of Tylenol and Motrin for the pain and a little Benadryl here and there for the itchy part of the rash. But, he's in the hands of Nannie today, and will be for the next few days and maybe a few next week.

Monday was quite crazy. We were at the doctor's office first thing in the morning to check out this rash from Sunday and slight fever that had developed overnight. Little did I know what we were in for. We needed blood work, something that required a trip to the hospital and LOTS of poking and prodding at Jacob. {I can handle shots and immunizations, digging around with a needle in my kid's arm is NOT something I can handle. There were lots of tears and finally requesting the nurse at the lab to stop. That's when we had to go to the hospital, they needed someone from peds to do the blood draw.} A urine sample on a 10 month old is INTERESTING, and it took two tries and ALL DAY to get it. Jacob filled three diapers that night until they were leaking... once we didn't need the urine sample anymore, he totally knew what was up! We were in doctors offices, labs and at the hospital for a total of 5 hours and then I had to go back for another hour in the afternoon. The good news is Jacob's blood work and kidney workup came back looking great. So, no damage to anything thus far.

He goes to the Ear, Nose and Throat doc on Monday, and the plan is not only to address the ear infections themselves but all this other stuff that's coming with them, the allergy to medicine, the HSP... our pediatrician seems to think that tubes in the ears would really help in the prevention of most of the other issues going on. 5 days.... 5 days.

Walking...

I have managed to get the little guy down tonight, although he didn't put up much of a fight. He has another rash, this time only on his legs. It's NOT pretty. Anybody got any ideas what this one is??? He hasn't had any new medicine, new food, new detergent... nothing. That allergist appointment can't get here soon enough.

On to the fun stuff... We were at our friends house last night and Jacob let go of the ottoman and walked to their exersaucer. ON HIS OWN! Just walked right over. Today he's been practicing his new skills and walking across our living room floor from the couch to the TV stand. He's getting pretty good at it. He just walks right over. I think I counted 11 steps one time. And he doesn't dive for his destination, he just walks right to it. SO BIG!

Swimming

Jacob had his first swim lesson at the Y Saturday morning. Here, he was reaching for a ducky in the water...

Sick Days... and multiple trips to the doctor

So, as mentioned in the steroid post, Jacob went to the doctor on Friday. They did a breathing treatment, gave us steroids, said if he isn't better call.... and then we had Easter weekend and all was well with the world.

Until Sunday night. Sunday Jacob went down as normal around 8ish, and woke up whining and whimpering around 11. He was up whining and crying and tossing and turning ALL NIGHT. He would only sleep on my chest if I was sitting up. At some point during the night I took him into the guest room so Dad could get some sleep and he was ROASTING. I didn't take his temp because by this point he had fallen asleep and this is when the rule - don't wake a sleeping baby - was in effect! When Pat left for work he had cooled down, and I let him continue to sleep just a little longer. When we got up and did take his temp it was at a cool 102. No telling how high it had gotten during the night, because he felt MUCH MUCH cooler. A trip back to the doc first thing in the morning told us he had a double ear infection - AGAIN. {These keep showing up in our house, and I don't like them} Jacob spent some time with me at the office, got his RX filled with a prescription he's had before and then came home to do some work while sweet Samantha kept Jacob for a few hours. When he got up from his nap around 6 last night he had a rash around his neck. I kept giving Pat weird looks, and told him, something wasn't right. Jacob didn't act like anything was wrong, and the rash began to go down in color very quickly... maybe he just got hot while he was sleeping??

For about an hour we kept going back and forth wondering if we should call the on call number or not, go to the urgent treatment center or not... I called and hung up the phone before anyone picked up twice, and then the rash started to get darker, and spread a little bit lower towards his chest. I called the on call doc, and we were on our way to their office in 10 minutes. After an hour it was determined he was having a drug reaction as the rash continued to spread across his body while we were in the office. Lots of TLC, a little bit of medicine and a new prescription for his ears and gunky lungs and we were on our way home.

They told us the rash would continue to spread... these are the Internet appropriate pictures, the more detailed ones are for us to show the allergist.

Now it is about everywhere and the color has gone down to a faint pink, so recovery is in our future. Also in our future is a trip to the ENT doctor for these ear infections and the allergist the next week. We were on the phone A LOT today, but hopefully before this little guy is one we'll have some answers to the allergies and possibly some tubes for his ears.

Easter

We had a nice Easter here. We got up early to see if the Easter bunny had come to visit, and sure enough, he hadn't forgotten Jacob.

Then, we were off to church and didn't forget to get our pictures in before we left.

We had dinner with friends and I cooked (yes, you read that correctly) the ENTIRE meal! The menu:

Ham

Deviled Eggs

Sweet Potato Casserole

Baked Beans

Rolls

Bunny Cake
Not much, but oh so yummy, and again... I did the ENTIRE meal by MYSELF!!!

And, I can't forget, Jacob's first Easter Egg Hunt was at church on Saturday morning, before going to Keeneland {busy weekend} we got together with several other kiddos and hunted eggs filled with chocolate. Not that Jacob needed any, but it was fun...

So, we found an egg, which immediately went into his mouth, and there was no need to look any further. This one egg occupied him for almost 10 minutes.

However, since he was the only little guy in the "toddler" hunt area, the middle schoolers decided they would help him find all the eggs they had hidden and FILLED his basket to the brim. They were so helpful!

So, it was a busy weekend, but very relaxing and full of fun! :)

The Steroids Must Have Kicked In

Friday, Jacob went to the doctor and needed a breathing treatment to help kick the gunk that he's had for the last two weeks. When we left they gave us a steroid prescription to give him for three days. Pat thinks, the steroids must have kicked in, because this is what I caught him doing this morning. More as to why we're home today {and yesterday} to come...