This past Tuesday, Brad and I took the afternoon off to both pick Preston up (which he was very excited to see the both of us) early from school and take him to TWO doctors appointments... one with the ENT and the other with Dr. Tomberlin for a check up from last weeks extravaganza! At the ENT, we scheduled Preston's surgery for tubes this coming Monday (the 17th) 7 AM. We figured the sooner, the better and we both just so happened to already have Monday off for MLK day... couldn't have worked out better. Oddly enough, our ENT's daughter is a third grader at my school... I only wish he would have offered us a discount. I guess that is frowned upon... "Teacher discount- 20% off tubes," probably isn't highly popular in the medical field. With all of Preston's medical issues, even with insurance, it is really starting to add up quickly.
Anyway, we then went to lovely Dr. T's office. When we arrived, we got the normal meet in great.. "Nice to see you back." "Wow... haven't seen you in a couple of days." so on and so forth. Nurses stopped by to see boo because they saw his name on the door. He's adored by just about every woman on staff there. When the doctor finally listened to his breathing, she actually said he sounded "almost perfect." No breathing issues, sounded great, looked great... YAY FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She did recommend we stay on three breathing treatments a day (two with albuterol and pulmacort and one with just albuterol) JUST to make sure he is healthy for his surgery on Monday, and then we could drop it down to two a day with just pulmacort and do albuteral as needed. YAY, YAY, YAY AGAIN! We couldn't have been happier, especially considering the weather has drastically changed since Sunday and we were expecting many more issues from this. :)
All was well/ perfect/ healthy/ stress free, until, of course, Wednesday morning. I swear the boy can't catch a break. I went to wake him up around 6:45 to take him to take him to school. As soon as I walked into his room, the overwhelming smell of throw up/ spit up hit me. I thought, "Man, is that how his room always smells and I've just gotten used to it?" That would be a no because as I picked him up, I noticed the dried brown nastiness all over is jammies, sheets, and his hair. The wonderful mother that I am, and knowing that I HAD to go into work today because my students were benchmarking and I couldn't miss, I just got him out, cleaned him with a wipey (again, it was the morning and there was no time for a bath this early and just to let you know, wipeys work wonders in all situations involving children), and slapped on some great smelling baby lotion to mask the God awful stinch coming from the boys head. (It is important to note here that Preston was smiling and in a great mood throughout the whole morning routine including his breathing treatment). I honestly didn't think anything was seriously wrong... maybe he just ate too much last night and it didn't sit well. That's all I could think.
So off to school we go and on the 2 minute drive there Preston just talked up a storm to me in the backseat. We get there and I try to explain the stinky smell on Preston BEFORE they notice just to insure them that I am a good mother and we bathe him every night... I drop him off and head to work. Not a minute after the bell rings, I get a phone call from his school. They tell me it is just a courtesy call, but Preston had two loose stools within about 5 minutes of each other, and after the third, they are required to send them home for at least 24 hours. They then tell me that there has also been a stomach bug going around his class and this is just how it started with all the other kiddos and then it leads to THROW UP. And they couldn't have mentioned this earlier? All I could think was, well yeah, he already had the throw up part, so I'm pretty sure he'll have the third BM shortly. I hang up and go to into my coworkers classroom and cry for a minute until I can collect my thoughts. She is VERY good at cheering me up and reminding me of what is important. I just kept saying, "Can't he just stay well for a WEEK?" I mean, it feels like he gets anything and everything that passes his way. I even suggested we put him in a bubble, somewhat similar to the "bubble boy." Well, I finally pulled myself together and called Brad. I caught him up on the situation and told him that I couldn't leave. He, of course, probably not want to listen to anymore of my ridiculousness, left work to go get him.
As soon as he got to his school, he picked up Preston and wouldn't you know the boy threw up ALL over him and his nice work clothes. He then texted and called a couple of times to tell me P Diddy wasn't keeping anything down and described just about every surface he had puked on. I then made Preston a doctors appointment at 1:30 because Brad was so worried he was going to get dehydrated and back to the hospital we would go (And when Brad gets worried, I really get worried.) Low and behold: Preston has STREP... again. They gave him an antibiotic and anti nausea meds. I asked Brad how he was acting and his response, "Well, after the puked all over me, he smiled." That about sums up my child... pretty happy in most situations. I got home that evening, played with him and tried to get him to drink something...
Now, let's just hope we can get the tubes Monday, all goes well with that, and he starts to have a stretch of healthy. His 9 month well baby check is fastly approaching in three weeks... and we would like to, if in any way possible, to stay OUT of our doctors office and in school until then. We shall see... only time will tell.
