Updates on Laurel: May 2002 |
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May 6, 2002
Laurel is sure having a rough day today! It's been kind of rough the last several days, actually, but we'd thought she was getting better and now she's taken a turn for the worse. Friday Laurel's babysitter gave us the news that Laurel had thrown up both of her feedings there. She threw up the two that evening, too. :-( Saturday we gave her Pedialyte and then worked our way back to formula, and by Sunday morning we thought she'd be OK to take to Maymont (a park in Richmond) as we'd planned. Well, not quite - she ralphed all over Bob in the parking lot! But we got her through the rest of the day by feeding her half as much twice as often, and she kept her last feeding down OK. We had a nice day at Maymont, BTW - the weather was beautiful, and Laurel was VERY good in her stroller! This morning, though, she threw up three times, until there was absolutely nothing left. She's having massive diarrhea, too. We're assuming it's a stomach bug, but it's not going away as fast as we'd hoped. She's also finally breaking the surface on her fourth tooth - it's mostly, but not completely through. Please pray she feels better soon!
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May 8, 2002
Laurel is STILL throwing up, and STILL having major diarrhea. We're getting kind of worried - this seems like a long time for a GI bug to last. We were hoping she was getting better, because she kept down her last three feedings yesterday, but she threw up again this morning and also pooped three times. Fortunately her 18-month check-up is tomorrow anyway, so we'll talk to the doc about it if she isn't better by then.
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May 9, 2002
Laurel had her 18-month check-up this afternoon. She's a little squirt - 31 1/4" and 19 lbs 14 oz. I'm not sure if I believe the height (if true it's down a LOT from her usual curve) because she was very worked up and tense and difficult to stretch. And I know her weight would have been higher a week ago, before the GI bug! It was a long round of barfing and diarrhea, but just as I was starting to despair yesterday she stopped. As it is, she was still up from her 15-month check-up (30 1/4" and 18 lbs - they didn't do a very good job of stretching her that time, either) so the doc seemed happy enough. The doc was very complementary of Laurel's alertness level (she looked right at the doc when she waved and said "hi" from across the waiting room), and as we told her about all the neat stuff Laurel's been doing with reaching for toys and "Touch & Feel" books Bob said that he was starting to think that Laurel might not end up too bad cognitively and the doc agreed! She said that she thought Laurel had made tremendous progress in the last couple of months. But suggested we might need to look at assistive technology for communicating in another year or so. She also said she thought we'd gotten a great occupational therapist. I guess Laurel was pretty fussy for her OT session this morning, and unfortunately she missed last week b/c the OT was sick. Bob was able to demonstrate Laurel's interest in that one toy this morning though. We found out last week that Laurel's feeding therapist is quitting at the end of the month (she's moving out of town), and it looks like the solution is going to be to have the OT take it over and come for one feeding session and one OT session a week. I'm hoping that she will be able to come more consistently than Laurel's current feeding therapist, who cancels frequently because she's either sick or her car has broken down - but I was hoping that a new feeding therapist would be able to come at a better time, too (the time her current one comes is pretty much when Laurel wants to take a nap) and it sounds like not. Turns out the OT is the only person in town trained to do feeding therapy who has any openings, though! Oh well, even if she just comes more consistently I guess that will be something. I've been sooo frustrated - between Laurel being sleepy and the cancellations, seems like we get a decent feeding therapy session maybe once every 2-3 months.
We also talked about Laurel's formula. Sounds like the plan is
to keep feeding her Neocate for another 6 months (ugh) and then see
about switching her to something more commonly available (and
cheaper!) at 2 years. Hopefully by then she will have outgrown
her intolerances.
And Laurel got two shots today, Prevnar and DTaP. And she was
NOT a trouper about it. The poor thing had zonked out - that
sure woke her up! But she's all done now until kindergarten!
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May 28, 2002
We're doing pretty well, Laurel has been healthy and has also been seizure-free for over 3 months (even when she wasn't healthy) - and we've found out that her blood level of seizure medication has dropped below the therapeutic level, so she has just plain gotten better. :-) She is now playing with a couple of different toys. I'm excited and nervous about our trip to NACD (http://www.nacd.org/ ) in 2 1/2 weeks to start her program with them. And just plain a nervous wreck about finishing my projects at work before my June 30 deadline. But I have been assured that even though I don't have a grant in place for July 1, I still have a job. Just so long as I get busy with grant-writing after June 30!
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