Thursday, June 28, 2007

Day 3 and We're Home!

We are home! Yeah, we are home! Thankfully we had a good night last night without a room mate and we actually slept until 8am. Dr. Hart (a partner of Dr. Postma) came in around noon to check her out. He said that everything looked normal on the CT scan which was great news because he indicated that they were looking for some type of mass behind her middle ear and that would have meant a major operation. So praise God on that! Then he checked her ear and said it looked good. He applied a dry powder to her ear for now and we have to bring her in to Postma on Monday to re-check. I'll gladly do that. But I still wonder if this has cured our problem. I guess time will only tell.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Day 2 Again

We had a rough night last night. After dinner we got a room mate. She was very nice and the child was older than Mallory but it's still extremely awkward. And then I turned out to be the annoying room mate because Mal woke up 3 times during the night. So needless to say we did not get much sleep. But they were discharged this morning so we are once again room mate free! As far as Mal's health, that is still up in the air. She had her CT scan this morning but we have not heard results back. Dr. Postma seems to be waiting to see what the test shows to determine her course of treatment. He mentioned that if the ear canal is the culprit we would basically be stuffing antibiotic ointment in the canal to keep it clean. Sounds great, doesn't it? Hopefully we will get a course of action tomorrow morning during rounds.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Day 1 Again

What a day! Mallory's surgery went well. Her take on the anestehia was not so good. She came out of it pretty rough and they ended up giving her two doses of morphine to calm her down. Once she settled we headed up to our room where she slept for a good part of the morning. Now she is vibrant as ever! But in the grand scheme of things her ear was very clogged again and he found that the infection was not in her middle ear. This is a good thing because it is not as serious and it means that there is less of a chance that her hearing could be affected by all of this. But it does mean that the infection is in the outer part of her ear (the ear canal) and it can be harder to treat. He is still having a CT scan done in the morning so I guess we have to wait until then.

Monday, June 25, 2007

A Little Info

For those of you who are like myself and have no idea what an Infectious Disease Specialist is I found this website that gives a great description (http://www.idsociety.org/Template.cfm?Section=What_is_an_ID_Specialist_). I thought I would include some quotes from it so you know what type of doctor Mal will be seeing tomorrow. I know I was curious because it sounded like a nasty kind of occupation.
-"Infectious Disease Specialists are like medical detectives. They examine difficult cases, looking for clues to identify the culprit and solve the problem."
-"Your doctor might refer you to an ID specialist in cases where an infection is difficult to diagnose, is accompanied by a high fever, or does not respond to treatment."
-"A blood serum analysis can help the ID specialist detect antibodies that indicate what type of infection you have. These advanced tests can further explain the results of earlier tests, helping to pinpoint the problem."

Sunday, June 24, 2007

This Little Piggy

Saturday mornings are usually pretty lazy around our house. Yesterday morning in particular I got up and got the kids breakfast. Once that was done I climbed back into bed hoping for a little bit more quiet time. While I was resting Jason climbed out of bed and headed into our living room to the sound of this:
"Now Wogyn (Logyn) let's do this. This little piggy pooped in the gwass. This little piggy pooped in the gwage (garage)."
These lovely descriptions were being told by Loryn. We've made a game out of doing "This little piggy" to Mallory and apparently the kids adapted it to fit their needs.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Hospital here we come

I can't believe that I am even writing this but...Mallory is headed back to the hospital. Her ear problems have not diminished since her last stay. So she is heading back to receive the antibiotics again and to have a few more doctors with bigger titles check her out. Please pray that this is the solution for us. We'll keep everyone updated. She heads in for her stay on Tuesday.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Family Vacation

June 8-11 we ventured out to Davenport, IA where we meet my dad's family for a "reunion". We enjoyed some great times with the extended family that we only see once a year. We took a visit to the Niabi Zoo and went hiking on the trails of Wildcat Den State Park. And of course we saw the John Deere Museum! We also visited an old mill and hiked around that too. The kids all did extremely well and enjoyed the free times at the hotel by swimming in the pool. Amazingly we made it all back in one piece!




You can call Jason "bird man" now. This was a fenced in area where you could feed these birds. The kids loved it because they would land on your arm, hair, shirt, etc.


I love this one! This is my dad and Madelynn looking out over the river in the back of the Grist Mill.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Day Three and Four

We are home! We had an eventful day yesterday. A doctor from the office finally checked her ears in the afternoon and we gained a roomie. The doctor hinted towards talking Dr. Postema into letting us go home. I think he felt sorry for us because we had a 5 month old baby as our roommate. But we didn't hear anything back. Then when they came to "flush" her IV at 9 pm it had dried up. So we had 2 options: pull the IV out and replace it; or pull it out and then give her a shot of the antibiotics in the morning. I chose option 2. After we did all that and got settled for the night our nurse came in saying Dr. Postema said we could go home since Mal didn't have the IV anymore. Yeah! We got home about 10:30 pm. This morning we have to head to the office and receive her last dose. But thank you so much for your calls, visits, and e-mails. I am so thankful for people in my circle!!



This is Mallory in the play room.


She is thoroughly enjoying her supper!