Oink, oink baby.

Disclaimer: the following is purely my OPINION. Opinion, people. Just like everything else you read these days, come to think of it. Between my husband and I, we may have many years of biology experience (even including some immunology), but neither of us has any first hand experience with flu research

So, heard any swine flu news lately? I know, I know, it's so obscure and hard to find. I'm hearing a lot of grumbling about hype and of course the theories that it's man-made and has been released by "big pharm"--those who will profit from sales of anti-virals and vaccines.

Okay......hype? maybe. The main thing I hear is there are 36,000 deaths from seasonal flu every year and comparatively, there have been extremely few deaths from this strain of flu. True. For now. There's a big catch-22 here for public health officials though. If they do nothing and they're wrong, there will be hell to pay. The public will blame officials when there is a shortage of resources. If they do their job and do it well (limiting the spread of the virus), there will forever be deriders claiming it was all hype and public panic was induced for no good reason. Well, I'd err on the side of caution too and let the "hype" claims fall where they may. Until everyone is lined up for a hot off the presses vaccine, I'll refrain from yelling "hype".

Here's my personal view: The current recommendation is to wash hands, cough and sneeze into your sleeve, keep your hands off your face, and stay home if you're sick. All good advice anytime, regardless of what's going around. If someone in my family were to pop up with a fever and respiratory symptoms, I would head to the doctor sooner than I normally would (since there have been a fair number of deaths here, and it makes sense to me that most of those who died were probably not treated with anti-virals early on). I have no intention of hanging out at indoor playgrounds or other places where large number of kids gather any time soon (but then, we tend to avoid them anyway since most kids don't have great hygiene and gleefully share germs). I don't see any harm at all in following these measures. I must admit I did run through in my head how much food/medicine we have on hand should it become more serious and we chose to stay home, but we store extra food anyway, so I didn't feel the need to go "stock up". Should a vaccine be pushed in the near future, I would be hard pressed to take it unless the situation changes dramatically...mostly because I'm distrustful of new vaccines anyway, I like long-term data if I have a choice.

There are an awful lot of swine flu stories out there. I'm not reading any "we're all gonna die!" stuff though. Personally, I appreciate knowing where cases are popping up. Just like the CDC puts up weekly reports of where seasonal flu outbreaks are (which I periodically check as well), I think it's helpful to know when something like this becomes prevalent in my area, so I can make better informed choices about what sort of situations I put myself and my kids into.

Pears, Peaches and Onions, oh my!

Sick Babies

I've been too overwhelmed to post this week. The beginning of the week was just busy--I was teaching Monday night and we had our book club meeting Tuesday night.

Then Wednesday came. Sedona woke up with a 101.8 fever and no other symptoms. Odd. Sierra was very very prone to ear infections as a baby, but Sedona's not. Sierra is also very prone to high fevers, Sedona is not. Since high, sudden fevers tend to be a symptom of viruses, we decided to give her ibuprofen and wait it out. A full day of baby cuddling later, we put her to bed and figured she was on her way to mending.

Then we went in to check on her before we went to bed. I'm not exaggerating--it hurt to touch her. That's how hot she was. The thermometer read 104.9. Here's where parenting gets oh so fun. My first baby, I would have rushed to the ER. Actually, that IS what I did with my first baby. Which is why I know that no pediatric people work in our local ERs, but high fevers still make the staff feel the need for an automatic IV, blood culture, urine culture (obtained through catheter) and if it doesn't come down fast enough, spinal tap. All very necessary tests at times, but, in short, horrific to go through when the staff are only used to working on adults. So, we chose to stay home. We stripped her down, wiped her with luke warm wash cloths, took her outside, turned down the A/C, turned on the fans, and pushed cold fluids on her (she already had ibuprofen in her system). It was past 3 am before we could sleep easy that she was okay.

Thursday morning was a continuation of the night with the added fun of her temperature jumping 2-3 degrees in an hour or less. We gave her more ibuprofen and called her doctor. When we got to the office, she was well into her ibuprofen dose and her temperature had continued rising and hit 104.6, so he gave her acetaminophen also in the office. She screamed through the insult of having her personal space invaded and it was determined she did not have ear infections or pneumonia. The hypothesis was a virus and to give her ibuprofen and acetaminophen (technically "outdated" advice, but makes more sense to me than leaving her at 105 for days) since one or the other wasn't helping. The doc told us to come back the next day if she still had fever. The rest of the day was an enthralling mix of snuggling with mom, crying and not sleeping. Thursday night was a repeat of Wednesday night. Using both drugs brought the fever lower, faster, but it still jumped several degrees in a matter of minutes before she was due for more meds, so we spent hours trying to keep her cool again.

With the same thing going on Friday morning, we went back to the doctor, where we knew we were in for (and dreading) a urinary catheter. Much to our surprise, this procedure wasn't traumatic at all when performed by an experienced pediatric nurse. I knew our doctor's nurse was good, but I figured a catheter on a baby would be terrible no matter what and it really wasn't. All of us thought everything looked fine, but babies are big on surprises and her clear, pale urine popped up with high levels of nitrites and white blood cells as soon as they put it on the dipstick. So, we had our answer---urinary tract infection. She got a shot of antibiotics and a prescription of antibiotics. The evening was another high fever extravaganza, but it finally broke in the middle of night and she hasn't needed any ibuprofen or acetaminophen today! The urine got sent off for culture and antibiotic susceptibility testing to be sure we're using the right thing to knock out the infection, but that takes 48 hours to run.

Thanks to our (really better than a lot of alternatives available in our area) health insurance we pay $650/month for, we "only" had to pay $50 in office co-pays and $42 for 10 tsp of antibiotic.

And now....we sleep.

The World According to Sedona

It's amazing what differences there are with the second baby. Sedona is 21 months old now and it's not at all uncommon for her to throw a typical toddler tantrum. I see the seedlings of what will soon sprout into those infamous "terrible twos". And at least once a day, I just chuckle and think, "yay 2s! 2s are AWESOME!" And no, I'm not being sarcastic. Making it through the terrifying threes and the ferocious fours gives you an amazing amount of appreciation and patience for some piddly, easy twos ;-)

In honor of Sedona and all her toddler glory, a few tidbits on "The World According to Sedona"

• Food must be dipped. Doesn't matter if it's ketchup, mustard, ranch or syrup, anything that can be picked up with fingers requires dipping
• There are no limits on what foods go best with what dips---bananas in ketchup? yum!
• When the dog is taller than you are, the best snacking strategy is to back yourself into a corner, hold your food close to your body and shout "GO!" at the dog
• When frustrated, the best course of action is to fall down and scream "BEE BEE! BEE BEE!!" until someone unbuttons your onsie and allows you access to the all-calming belly button
• A grown up must read all babies at least 5 books of their choice, 3 times each, every day (this is simply a minimum)
• It is, at times, strategically appropriate to hit big sister with a shovel, scream through the resultant time out, then give her a hug as apology. Big sisters apparently don't harbor grudges
• I've got this potty training thing DOWN! I sit on the potty, by choice, everyday. I still choose to save all the pee and poop for diapers though.
  
• Speaking of diapers, my momma won't get me a wipe warmer because she doesn't want me to be too comfortable with this diaper thing. Cold wipes are evil
• Strawberries that have even a speck of red on them call me to pick them. I can't help it, they whisper my name. After one bite, I remember they're not good until they're red all-over, so I throw them down on the ground to save anyone else the disappointment
• I can climb the ladder up to the play house now. You should see how fast my momma and daddy can run when I get to the top step and stop to shriek in glee
• I can also go down the slide by myself, but when I forget to wait for help, I slide right off the end and crash land on the ground
• I climb onto the kitchen table at least twice a day. If I'm consistent, Momma will eventually learn I belong there and leave me alone
• I like to color. My favorite mediums are marker on table/chairs/library books and crayon on wall. Nothing "pops" quite like red crayola on yellow wall
• I like to stack. Momma keeps trying to tell me something about balance and putting smaller things on bigger things, but I think she's off her rocker, so I'm just trying it all
• The bakery section of the grocery store puts out the most freebies weekday mornings. When it's just me and mom, I often breakfast on brownies, croissants, donuts and scones all in one shopping trip
• It's hard to tell the sound of one truck from another, so the safest bet is to run to the front door yelling, "DADEEEEEE!" whenever any truck drives by
• The rudest way to wake up is getting kicked out of bed (literally) by big sister. where's my shovel?