Tuesday, February 26, 2013

My Johnson's Is Broken...

Yeah. Ya know the Johnson and Johnson commercials with a smiling, laughing mom sweetly massaging her beautiful smiling baby with baby lotion - in an all white bedroom, sun streaming through the spotless window? My lotion must be broken.

For some reason, when I attempt this, I am wearing sweats, my hair completely disheveled, and Greyson is either screaming, or spitting up Linda Blair style - in a nursery with a toxic smelling diaper genie and burp cloths on every surface. I demand a refund.

The truth is - as I have mentioned numerous times before - parenting is HARD. Rewarding beyond measure, but HARD. Its even harder when your child has issues that you don't understand and, quite frankly, scare you to death.

Take the latest development in Greyson's short little life: tracheomalacia. Google it. Basically my kiddo has a floppy trachea. I like to put it that way because it just sounds less serious than "a condition characterized by the flaccidity of the tracheal support cartilage which leads to tracheal collapse, especially when increased airflow is demanded". Wouldn't you agree? Poor little Grey was recently diagnosed with this condition after his persistent mother demanded someone explain why my child was experiencing all of these symptoms.

No one likes to be "that" mom. The one who calls the pediatrician all the time with concerns that their child is all but dying. I did that with MC. I was determined to be more laid back with numero dos. HOWEVER, when you know something isn't right, you just KNOW. Grey's breathing was growing increasingly concerning (high pitched gasping sounds, or low, deep congested rattling) and he was choking every time he tried to eat. Factor in constant spitting up because he is sucking in so much air when he's choking and you have the recipe for a crying mom scouring the Internet for answers.

I had mentioned these symptoms to his regular pediatrician, but, again, not wanting to be "that" mom, I tried not to make a big deal about them. When she didn't seem concerned and said it was probably just his reflux, I tried to put my worries aside. She was a doctor - she would tell me if I should be concerned. However, that little mommy voice just kept saying "something isn't right!". I listened and after stumbling upon tracheomalacia in my late night crying fit, I knew I was on to something. Greyson had every listed symptom and when I played a video of a baby with the condition, Adam (who was sitting next to me on the couch but unable to see the screen) asked if I had video taped Grey to show the doctor. I told him that wasn't Greyson and we were both amazed that this baby sounded so much like him.

The next day I called the pediatrician office on a day I knew our regular pediatrician was out and scheduled an appointment with a different doctor. After describing Greyson's symptoms and showing her videos of him when he was making odd breathing sounds, she said it sounds like tracheomalacia and referred us to a pediatric pulmonologist. She said that if it was just noisy breathing she probably wouldn't do anything, however since he is having such issues feeding we need to explore it further. She said the pulmonologist would probably want to do a swallow test where they will put dye in his formula and then do an x-ray to ensure he isn't aspirating liquid into his lungs. I am PRAYING his case isn't severe (most children simply outgrow the condition between 18 and 24 months once the trachea has a chance to harden appropriately) and we don't have to do any further testing or treatment.

With that being said, Greyson now has tracheomalacia, thrush, and acid reflux. Parenting is HARD. The Johnson's didn't succeed in turning my life into a happy, smiley commercial but maybe it will at least make the stink smell a little better ;)

Friday, February 8, 2013

1 Month and Growing!

I hate that I have done such a horrible job documenting sweet Greyson's life thus far. However, with today being my sweet boy's one month birthday, I figured I should get on it. While I won't go back to the beginning and restate everything, I did want to record a few things we want to remember in this first month of getting to know our little man!

1. You are toxic. I kid you not. Your gas is so outrageous and your poop is so foul it could easily clear a small building. You stink, but we still love you ;)

2. You are king of the funny faces. My man, you make some HILARIOUS expressions - our favorites being the "deer-in-headlights" face, the "Im-making-toxic-poop" face, the "save-me-from-these-crazy-people" face, and the "old-man" face. Love it.

3. You LOVE your forehead being rubbed. It immediately makes you close your eyes and drift off to sleepy land.

4. MC requests Greyson dances almost every evening. Daddy bounces you up and down on the kitchen table and makes you dance. Sometimes like Michael Jackson, sometimes like Justin Beiber. You usually respond with your "save-me-from-these-crazy-people" face.

5. Your hair sticks straight up. Literally. It's ok. The ladies love a man with rocker hair.

6. You sound like a bulldog who has just run a marathon 99% of the time thanks to your acid reflux. We're trying to get it under control buddy. You've got the hair going on, but the snorting isn't exactly the ladies' thing...

7. You aren't nearly the fan of the lamb chair and lamb swing as your sister. One day will you like them? Please?

8. Your choice for background noise on the Homemedics sound machine is "ocean waves". You might take after mommy afterall... beach bums rule ;)

9. It irritaes you when MC plays with your hands. She can't help it - she's obsessed. Try to deal with it. It WILL get worse from here. At least she's not dressing you like a princess yet.

10. I'm considering letting you sleep in the car at night. Ok, not really.... but it would be awesome. You will go 5 hours without eating when we drive around in the car and carry you places in your carseat, but I'll be darned if you don't wake up every 3 hours at night for a bottle. Maybe we can make some adjustments to the pack-n-play so that it LOOKS like a car...would that work for you?

11. At your one month check up you were 10lbs 7.5oz (55%) and 23 inches long (95%). Don't get excited, this is probably the only point in your life where you will be in the top percentage for your height. You aint got a chance between me and your daddy.

12. You tend to fuss for no reason, stink to high heaven, have projectile spit ups, and want to eat all the time - but, ya know what? We love you more than you will EVER know little Grey and we wouldn't trade it for the world!! :)