More Messy Eating!

I promise to limit my proof of just how messy three babies can be... but I had to share these, taken tonight. It was my mom's birthday dinner and Edward's lasagna was her special request. The babies loved it, too!

Colin

Keith

Evelyn

Onto something completely different for the next post!

Welcome to the table!

For the past few nights, we've fed the babies a modified version of our own dinner at the table. They are SO excited to sit with us. Tonight was their first sampling of tomato sauce... which, as you can see, necessitated a communal bath.

Colin is doing much better. Thanks for everyone's emails and best wishes! We've stopped the prednisone and the ventolin every four hours, and his nose isn't running anymore either. I guess it's no surprise that as soon as my allergies improved, his did too. We're watching him closely, but he certainly seems to be feeling good and everyone is sleeping better at night!

Trials And Tribulations

Regular readers of our blog will know that for the past three months, we've struggled to identify and treat Colin's breathing issues. We've been back and forth to the pediatrician's, but we usually return pretty promptly to square one: 2am ventolin and saline treatments and a lot of runny noses, huffing and puffing throughout the day.

Possibly exacerbated by a small cold he may have caught from me, Colin's breathing issues got dramatically worse over Monday night. He started to wheeze heavily and his breathing was laboured. At 2am Tuesday morning, I brought him to the Emergency at the closest hospital. A chest x-ray revealed that his left lung was murky, so he was diagnosed with pneumonia, given a ventolin mask and antibiotics and we were home by 6am.

But later yesterday afternoon, his breathing got much worse. His chest and ribs were heaving with every breath and he looked panicked and was very agitated - symptoms I know all too well. His wheezing was audible across the room. I rushed him to the Children's Hospital and they treated him for acute respiratory distress. We had six more ventolin masks and two rounds of inhalers over the course of the next ten hours as well as a dose of prednisone. His breathing and wheezing showed a slow but steady improvement while he was in the hospital, and we're doing another four days of prednisone at home along with his ventolin and a "maintenance" inhaler to get his lungs in better shape. Another x-ray showed atelectasis , which is pretty common for asthmatics. The maintenance inhaler should help reduce the problem, and hopefully keep it at bay. It could take three weeks for that inhaler to take effect, so we were told that we might end up back at Emergency before then.

Colin had a very peaceful night (FINALLY!!), but this morning he was extremely wheezy and laboured in his breathing, so back we went. They gave him more ventolin and monitored him for two hours. We were home in time for lunch :) His appetite over the past few days was poor, but this was compounded by his inability to eat because he couldn't breath.

But I am so proud of my little guy... though the three nose and throat suctioning episodes, the near-constant breathing checks and monitoring, the various masks, the serious lack of sleep, the two chest x-rays (in a contraption like this) he was still all smiles and charmed everyone he met. I even got him to raise his little arms and pump his fists in the air during the x-ray while doing his favourite "Go Colin!" chant.

Here's hoping we nipped this in the bud, and he'll continue to improve. Now, we have to figure out what's triggering his asthma. Edward and I have the devastating thought that it could be a little four legged pup.... Sigh.