An update on our lives....
The Bear: TPS is still the other woman in our lives. She steals Bjorn at the most inopportune moments, keeps him out until the wee hours of the morning and most cleverly, makes me work for her as well! Hahaha. I volunteered myself to design t-shirts and help plan parties for the group. With six months in and six more to go, we just recently welcomed the new junior class (yes, Bjorn can now begin his senior slide...riiight.) and their wives/significant others. Only one more party to plan: GRADUATION!!! Wooohooo....the light is at the end of the tunnel. Despite this excitement, there is of course a silver-lining to the happiness: we are literally shoulder deep in flying, report writing and exams (and when I say "we" I really do mean the students...but we, as families, do suffer right along with them).
Bjorn is keeping a great perspective in all of this, despite the long hours and little sleep. He is amazingly dedicated to coming home as much as his schedule will allow to eat dinner with all of us and doing Cross-fit. Even though there is a lot of work ahead of him, this will also be the time where he will get to do a lot of the "fun" stuff in flying. I am excited for him, but also nervous for him (I always get this way if he's not out flying the mighty, and safe, P-3!).
The Cubs: They are growing like crazy! Audriana and Haakon are so imaginative in their play. We are so blessed to be in a cul-da-sac with SO many wonderful neighbors and same-age children. We are out in our "U" from pretty much after dinner until we get ready for bed....nearly 2 hours a night. Now that Espen is a prolific walker, I have to be that much more of a swivel head. It has only been within the last two weeks that Espen is truly walking completely unassisted....and zooming! Haakon is potty-training. Great success with peeing. But having a BM is completely freaking him out. So he asks for a diaper when he feels the urge to go #2. I give in because (a) I hate getting sweaty forcing H to sit on the toilet to go poop while he's screaming "No, mommy! No mommy!" There is something inherently wrong with it; (b) he will usually end up pooping somewhere with poop smeared on his butt cheeks (yes, do you have a visual yet?). And this all equals NO FUN FOR MOMMY! So, I am just going to bank on the fact that it will be unlikely that H will need to go #2 at school. Please, please, PLEASE let that come true! Audriana is becoming a wonderful, albeit bossy, big sister to her brothers. She takes my rules and applies them to the max! But she is also incredibly loving and caring of her brothers...and of me! She is coming into a beautiful and spunky little girl. She'll be starting ballet in the fall and she could not be more excited!
We began our summer with a trip out to Sesame Street Place during Bjorn's summer break. It was so much fun and the kids LOVED it. We only went overnight and it was just the right amount of time. We are fortunate hat Anheiser-Busch gives military families a free pass every year to any of their parks. Unfortunately, the evening of our fun adventure to Sesame Street Place was the beginning of our nightmare with Espen.
As all five of us are packed in the hotel room that evening, Bjorn became violently ill. A few hours later, Espen joined him. Bjorn and I just finished watching "Contagion" a few nights before. Needless to say, I am sure you can imagine what was running through both of our heads! While Bjorn was sick, I had all three kids sleeping in bed with me. With every movement of the kids, I shot up with hands outstretched (wrapped in a bath towel) ready to catch whatever came out of their mouths. I was washing my hands like it was my job. I kept repeating in my head: "I will not get sick. I will not get sick. I cannot get sick. I cannot get sick." I was afraid that one of my worst fears was coming true: a sick daddy, sick mommy, three sick babies and a 4- hour car ride between our hotel room and the comforts of home. There were times that I felt like I had to puke too, but I think I was feeling overly sympathetic. Luckily, a worst fear was only a bad dream: it was only one sick-daddy, one sick baby and a CAR sick baby. In the course of no more than 12 hours, I think I was either puked or pooped on a total of NINE times.
This bug put Bjorn out of commission for about 5 days straight. He is convinced that it was food poisoning from a sandwich that he shared with Espen. Luckily, he was on a two week break from classes and used up pretty much all that time to recover. Unfortunately for Espen, this is where our roller coaster nightmare took off.
Just as he looked like he was recovering, a new or previous symptom would re-emerge. This went on for about a week or so. He was seen by a couple of doctors, including one urgent care doctor, who tested him for strep throat (came back negative) and could not tell what was wrong. Then I noticed that he was getting a rash all over his trunk. It looked very similar to Audriana's bout with roseola, or 6th's Disease. I called the doctor and he agreed that Espen was probably fighting a virus and that this was just his body's way of responding. The next morning, not only did the appearance of the rash change, but he had diarrhea, fever, and his hands and feet were swollen. I was done. I took him to the hospital ER. At this point we were at about 2 1/2 weeks into the illness.
Fortunately, on an early Sunday morning, people are slow to trickle in. So we were the only ones waiting in the waiting room and only for about 2 or 3 minutes. We were brought back right away. Three nurses, plus myself, held Espen down as they tried to force feed him some Motrin to get his 103 fever down. Completely unsuccessful. The very sight of a medicinal bottle or syringe had him clamping his lips shut and saliva foaming at the mouth. Espen is a pro.
The doctor comes in right away and examines my little boy. He explained that kids usually get tons of viruses and they usually go away on their own without medical intervention. However, there was one type of virus that they worry about in kids. Kowasaki's Disease. He went on to explain that this was a very dangerous type of virus and that medical intervention is needed as soon as it is diagnosed because it can prove to have permanent damage to the heart. Ok. At this point I was waiting for him to tell that this was NOT what he thought our son had at all. Instead, he says, "Espen is presenting symptoms very similar to Kowasaki's and we need to get a second opinion. If the pediatrician on-call agrees with me, we will need to transport him to Walter Reed Hospital." The ped on-call comes in, examines Espen and agrees with the ER doc: Espen needs to be transported to Walter Reed for KD evaluation. My stomach sinks.
At this point, I ask the doctor if we can just make the 2-hour drive up to Bethesda ourselves. He says no. Espen needs to be transported by ambulance. My mind is racing....and guilt is settling in. Why didn't I take him in sooner? Why didn't I insist on the doctor's on base and at urgent care do a more thorough exam? Everything was happening so fast. Everything I read while waiting for the doctors indicated that KD is best treated within the first 10 days of the virus in order to avoid permanent damage to the heart. We were at day 16! What is going to happen to my beautiful little boy?
While we were waiting for the ambulance to take us, the ER nurses and doctor were amazingly dedicated to our care. And the staff at Walter Reed were amazingly prepared and coordinated to take us on as patients. They were calling periodically to check on Espen's condition. I could not have asked for a better experience for what we had to go through that morning.
We arrived to Walter Reed and right away, Espen is evaluated for KD....by of course, more first year residents! For those of you who know me, I appear to be a magnet for first year residents in Navy medicine. I am not sure if I have an invisible sign to new doctors or what, but I feel like I am constantly donating time and illness to the good of Navy medicine. After a thorough evaluation, they are confident that Espen does NOT have KD. At this point, I am grilling the doctors and their attending physician, of their certainty in ruling out KD. The attending pointed out kids with KD are absolutely miserable. Despite his fever and diarrhea and rashes and swelling, Espen is still smiling and flirting with the doctors. After about 30 minutes of asking them questions, I was satisfied with their answers.
Unfortunately, Espen's illness continues for another 3 weeks and more visits up to Walter Reed.
Read more in part II of this post.
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| ER visit |
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| Dash-3 is very protective of his food and I think he was thinking that a nurse was going to come take his yummy graham cracker... |
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| When we got up to Bethesda, they hooked him up to a heart monitor, IV and oxygen monitor right away. He was such a GREAT sport with it all. |
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| He never spent more than 5 minutes in the hospital crib. Part of the perk of being sick was getting to sleep on Mommy's chest all night long and cuddling during the day. |
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| And he's ready to go home any which way he can! |
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