As you may or may not know, December was a month of illness for us. Noah had a cough for 2 1/2 weeks. Just as his cough started to get better, he started complaining about having severe pain in his right side. We called the doctor and we are immediately sent to the ER for suspected appendicitis.
We arrive about 1pm and go back to an exam room almost immediately (impressive for Children's ER - much faster than expected). After hours of poking, proding, x-rays, ultrasounds, blood work, and an IV, Noah is finally admitted around 3am. We were in the ER so long that some of the hospital office staff stopped by to visit. They said that they can't ever remember a time that a patient has spent so much time in the ER without being admitted and jokingly said they are now calling his exam room the "Noah Suite". How nice - by 3am when we're admitted, it's probably gone from Noah's Suite to Noah's Wing. The next afternoon he is discharged and the dr says that it's just a bad tummy ache. Once he poops, he'll be fine. What I hear: "We don't know what's wrong. Go home and if it gets worse, come back." He can sense my frustration and once all the student dr leave, he asks me how confident I am in what he has told me. I told him that I don't believe him and they were discharging us without diagnosis. We talked about it and I felt better but not convinced I wouldn't be back later that night. Noah has waves of severe pain over the next few days. We had hospitals bags packed by the door and everyone on stand by to take care of Natalie. It turns out the dr was right - he just needed to poop. I'm glad it wasn't appendicitis but how embarrassing..."Noah was in the hospital." "Why?" "He had to poop." Really - I can't have some amazing story of rushing off with appendicitis and survivng surgery and recovering at home. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad it wasn't appendicitis but come on - he just had to poop?!?!
A few minutes before the severe pain started, we were visiting Santa at the mall. Santa also came to see him in the hospital before he was discharged. On the way home from the hospital he says, "Mom, I don't like the hospital Santa. Just the mall Santa." I'm surprised and ask him how many Santas there are "Two. One that lives at the mall and one that lives at the hospital." "Which one do you like?" "I like the one at the mall. I don't like the one at the hospital. He scares me." He's pretty smart...the difference was the beard. Mall Santa has a real beard. Hospital Santa has a fake beard. "Which Santa makes toys?" "The one that lives at the North Pole." So, apparently there are 3 Santas - one at the mall, one at the hospital and one that actually makes the toys.
Once all is better from the hospital, Noah's cough starts back up again. Natalie and Dave get the cough, too. Natalie stops sleeping through the night - double ear infection. The coughing stops just in time for strep throat to be passed between the 3 of them.
A few days before school to starts back up again, the coughing, the ear infections, the strep, etc has passed and things seem to be getting back to normal. FINALLY!!
After one of our many trips to the dr during the last few weeks, we decide to stop by Chipotle for lunch. Natalie ate a quesadilla - sort of. About 2/3 of the way through, she saw Dave blow his nose so she decided her quesadilla was a tissue and used it to blow her nose. So - she sort-of ate a quesadilla for lunch.
Noah is potty trained. We haven't quite mastered overnight but I'm not as worried about that. He's wearing pull-ups overnight and some times he will wake up to change his pull-up because he's peed in it. The fact that he's waking himself up to change it is a good sign. Now if he can just learn to wake up BEFORE he pees in the pull-up. :)
So - after all that - sorry it's taken so long for an update. I've been busy...
