Buy 10 get, one free?

That's my inside joke with our family's nurse right now. I've had one kid or another in to see our Dr. 3 times in the last 10 or so days. At our most recent visit, yesterday, I asked our nurse if they could start a punch card for me....after 10 visits I get one free. When our Dr. enetered the room and saw us, yet again, the shocked look on his face said it all, "You're back again?" I told him that I was trying to set a new record- how many times can I see our Dr. in the month of September.

The first visit was for my sinus headache and Andrew's chronic runny nose. My headache eventually departed, without meds, and life was grand again. As for Andrew, I decided to forgo the Amoxicillan after the 3rd day because I just didn't see his problems as being bacterial and needing an antibiotic. Instead, I started him on Claritin and his nose was behaving nicely by day 2.

Visit #2 was Andrew's pre-surgery physical and labwork. Andrew was checked over tip-to-toe by our Dr. in preparation for his T&A on Thursday, Sept. 13th. While Andrew was declared to be in wonderful health the Dr. did discover 2 minor concerns. One is called Keratosis Pilaris, a form of excema which is usually not itchy. He has these little skin-colored bumps all over his forearms and thighs. The next find is Pectus Excavatum, meaning that Andrew's chest wall/sternum have a sunken-in look to them. While this is very mild in Andrew's case, more significant cases present problems with the chest wall putting pressure on the heart and lungs, causing possible heart and breathing problems.

Visit #3 was for Miss Ellie. My poor girl was standing beside my bed last Thursday morning, in tears, at the way-too-early-hour of 5:30am. She was telling me that her tummy hurt an she thought she was going to throw up. By 10am she was feeling better but, much to her dismay, I kept her home from school all day anyway. I thought it was a short-lived bug but shortly after bedtime Thursday night she was in pain and tears once again. She woke me up 3 or 4 times that night because she wasn't feeling well, and was up for the day, again, at 5:30 with the same complaints. Same story Friday night and into Saturday morning. She carried a pail with her, as she was quite nauseas, but never needed it.

Saturday night brought the same....up many times in the middle of the night, stomach pain and nausea. I was waiting for this 'short-lived bug' to actually show itself...but it didn't. Sunday morning came (aka Day 4) and I was a bit concerned that this had gone on for so long without progressing or regressing so I asked her more pointed questions about the pain/nausea. I learned that she feels Ok during the day but when she's laying down it gets worse and it "feels like it's coming up into my neck". She just described reflux. Sunday night was no better, neither was Monday morning. I was able to get her in to see our Dr. early Monday afternoon. Questions were asked and answered and a diagnosis of reflux was made. We left the clinic with a script for Prevacid and instructions that if there was little or no improvement after 14 days to come back. At that point the Dr. would want to do an Upper GI scan.

Last night was the first night on the anti-reflux meds, and it proved to be the worst yet. El went to bed at 7:30, still with pain/nausea, and was awake at 11:30 with even more pain/nausea. Shortly before 2am, with none of us having slept yet, Randy headed out to Walmart to pick up some Pepto for kids, in the hopes that something, anything, would help. At 3am El took the Pepto, and finally drifted off to sleep (or passed out from exhaustion, more than likely)around 3:30am. I set off to bed shortly after that but laid in bed and wondered/worried until after 4:30. I got up around 6:30 for the day and was quite disappointed to see that Ellie was already awake and not feeling well again. And so it goes, again....

I'm not 100% sure we're dealing with reflux here. I'm not even 50% sure it's reflux anymore. This seems to have gone on for way too long (we're on Day 6) with no relief. The anti-reflux med may take up to 4 days to reach full effect.....I really don't think we can last another 2 days until this works....if it even does.