The First Ear Infection

It finally happened. Owen has suffered his first ear infection. The infection has only effected the left ear and leaving the right ear to do all the work.
For those who may be unaware, the fact that he has made it to almost 2 years old without being afflicted with any sort of ear troubles is pretty phenomenal.

Ear Infections are common in children with the average toddler getting two to three a year. Children with achondroplasia are even more prone because of abnormal drainage due to their irregular cranial structure and narrowed nasal passages. If not treated, an ear infection could lead to hearing loss.

The bad part about avoiding an infection for so long is that it apparently wanted to make up for lost time. This one was a doozy! Our Dr. said his eardrum had ruptured and was oozing puss....eeewwww....
Poor guy. Owen was an amazing trooper through it all. He was miserable, don't get me wrong, but he could have been a nightmare and wasn't. After about 18 hours of Augmenten and eardrops he was almost totally back to normal...er...average.
Unfortuntately I lost my charger for my camera battery - hence - no pictures. I have 2 days off to search for it though so hopefully it will turn up!

He's OK!

Thank you to everyone for your concern for Owen! I am happy to report he is feeling much better. He's still not 100% on the Owen Personality Meter (more like 74 to 76%) but he's closer to get back to his old self. The nebulizer treatments definitely helped and we were able to keep him out of the hospital. Hallelujah! I was a little worried about the prospect of having to take him to the hospital. We have already had 2 ER trips since October. At what point does Social Services start to worry!? Despite how much the treatments are helping, they are not Owen's favorite activity. You can see how miserable he is. It really gets his heart going. It's a little frighting to feeling your childs heart pumping so fast but it is a side effect of the medicine. I'm back to work ~sigh~ and he's well enough to go back to day care so life is back to normal (did I just use that term?). If there was an upside to Owen being sick, it was that his was so cuddly! All he wanted to do was lay on Dan and I which rarely happens any more. See? There's always a silver lining!

Never a dull moment!

Owen has respiratory syncytial virus or RSV. He is one sick little boy. He developed a cough on Friday and got progressively worse through the weekend. By Sunday, he was lethargic and miserable. The scary thing for us is that he was not interested in eating at all which was very alarming to us. My biggest concern was the dehydration. We took him to the doctor yesterday morning and the doc said it was RSV. He sent 3 babies to the hospital for it last week so it goes without saying that it seems to be circulating. Luckily the pediatrician felt that we could treat it at home so we now have to give him nebulizer treatments 3 times a day for a week! This little virus is pretty nasty. It last for 10 days to 2 weeks so Owen will start to feel better - in a week. Great! Poor guy. I took a couple days off of work to stay with him. I'll keep everyone updated!

Owen: Our Happy Halloweener!

Haha! I said Hallow "weener"! Hahahahah! (I know, I'm so immature. Can you believe someone up there gave me a kid?!). Another eventful week for Owen! I'm going to start with the bad and end on the high notes. Owen was back in the ER last Thursday night. He woke up at about midnight and sounded horrible. He had developed this strange cough that sounded like a barking dog. My extra sensory mother powers kicked in and I somehow knew that it was croup. I had never heard a croup cough before but knew that if I had, this is what it would sound like. Or maybe it's because when he coughed, it sounded like he was barking "CROUP! CROUP! CROUP!". He was having some serious difficulty breathing so we took him right in. That was scary. What scared us even more is that when we arrived at Triage, they admitted him right away. Everything turned out OK. They gave him a nebulizer treatment and a steroid shot and sent him on his way. Only problem now is that Owen is having angry tantrums and has developed a nasty case of back acne. Ha ha. Just kidding. No, the little guy is fine but did in fact have "the croup". Apparently it's going around. I find it funny in that Owen has a condition that may cause him medical problems for years to come, but he has somehow wound up in the Emergency Room twice for issues completely unrelated to achondroplasia! Weird. On to the funner stuff! Owen is progressing by leaps and bounds. He is eating some finger foods now and is developing quite a pincher grasp. He loves Gerber Graduates Sweet Potato Puffs! He seems to understand the function of a spoon and when given liberties, for the most part uses it correctly on his own. He is sitting up on his own for the most part and is constantly rasing his stomach up and down, up and down. The physical therapists say it's the first step to crawling. We say it looks like he's humping the floor. Owen is adding vowels and consentants to his babbling repertoire. "Booboobooboo" is the latest and just in time for Halloween! Still no mama :( It's OK. Dan has been comforting me by saying that Owen just doesn't love me. He's very close to waving bye-bye. He is constantly flapping his arms and grabbing his socks. He is becoming a little boy right before our very eyes. This week was full of fun stuff for Owen. He got to visit Grandma and Grandpa Wright twice this week!! He sure did miss them! The most exciting thing of all was HALLOWEEN! Owen's silly spider costume was a smash hit! Even he didn't seem to mind it. He sayed in his costume without complaining for almost 2 1/5 hours. Isn't he the silliest spider around?

Sicko :(

Today I got my very first scary your-kid-is-sick-call. YIKES! I can live without that call for the rest of my life! Dan noticed that Owen was a little off this morning. He felt hot and wasn't doing his usual rolling all over the place routine. Dan kept and eye on him and he seemed fine when we dropped him off at daycare. At about 3 pm I got a call from our daycare provider who temped Owen at 104.2!!! I was a nervous wreck the entire way to the doctors office. Angie was wonderful enough to drive Owen to the doctor's office so I could meet them there. Turns out he's OK, he just has a virus. We need to keep an eye on his fever and dose him with Tylenol. Poor guy! Owen before he realized he was sick.

Now he's catching on!