Thursday, January 5, 2012

Family Health Update : the good, the bad, and the ugly!

As usual, my family's health issues have kept me hopping over the past few weeks.  Here's the summary...

The good news is that Owen has been cleared by neurology.  This is great news for us.  For those who didn't know, Owen had a number of (what we thought) were seizures.  Trust me!  They looked like seizures.  I'm not altogether convinced that the first one he had in August while on vacation in Vancouver wasn't a seizure, but there were mitigating factors at the time.  The theory is that he's actually fainting, but that the lack of blood to the head makes him mimic seizure-like activity (ie-convulsing/stiffening).  This can be really scary to see, but it's better than the original diagnosis of epilepsy.   Owen is learning to recognize the signs when he's feeling faint and sit or lie down.  He comes by this honestly as both I, my mother, and sister are all fainters.  The bad news is that blood seems to be a big trigger for him, so unless something changes, we can rule out a medical profession for him :S

Felix's lip is healing beautifully (see previous post for info).  I'm actually amazed at how quickly it's healed.  He went to the dentist for an x-ray as they though he may have damaged the big front tooth coming in behind the baby tooth.  Everything looks good.  He chipped his upper, front, right tooth, and his bottom teeth are a little loose, but he, thankfully, didn't do any permanent damage.  At the end of the day we were pretty lucky.  Considering he landed smack on his face, it could have been much worse....

As for Mr. Emmett, he certainly gave us a scare this week.  He'd been running a temp for a number of days, so we went in to see our pediatrician.  She heard fluid in his lungs and sent us for an xray at CHEO as she suspected pneumonia.  The radiologist sent her a report the next day that said he had "pulmonary edema".  That means that they essentially though he was in a bit of congestive heart failure (not totally out of the realm of possibilities considering his cardiac history).  The office was, unfortunately very cryptic when talking to me, but I knew what they were thinking which led to some sleepless nights.  Our pediatrician followed up with Emmett's cardiologist who got another radiologist's opinion.  The second opinion was that "while his lungs are wetter than previous xrays, its more in line with a viral infection".   So essentially, they scared the sh¤} out of me, but it's likely just a cold!  We're keeping an eye on him, but he seems to be on the mend.

Both Dave and I have been battling something I can only describe as gastro-like.  I brought the new year in at home in bed.  Luckily Dave was able to get out to a friends house, so the evening wasn't a total bust.

So I guess that's the low-down on our health status.  Let's hope for a less eventful year!

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