The Valentine Fam

Some days are better than others.  Today happened to be one of those mornings that just didn't go so well and this all happened before 11.  Here's the email I sent to Jed.

Day from HE double hockey sticks...

I currently don't have a phone... Hadley decided to put it in a toilet full of pee!!  It's currently in rice but will probably cost $100 to replace if that doesn't work.

Last Wednesday was Ryker and Kody's well check appointments with Dr. Bennett.  They had both had colds from the previous week and Kody still wasn't feeling 100% with the cough and runny nose.  But that was just the start of what has turned into quite the week.

While Dr. B was looking over Kody he noticed a rash on the back of this legs/thighs.  This was the first I had seen of it as he didn't have it the night before during bath time.  After checking it out further he said it was likely HSP (Purpura) which is where your capillaries under the skin are leaking and leaving red spots.  Most likely it'll go away in a couple of weeks and over the course of a couple months we would need to have a few urine analysis done to check for Kidney damage which can occur in rare instances.



As weird as I thought it was, I didn't really think it would turn into that big of deal.  He had his kindergarten shots and we were on our way.  The next day he wasn't feeling very good so I left a message for Dr. B.  He called me back while we were on our way to the Nicholas Family Reunion up in the Logan area that evening and said that there was nothing to worry about and we'd just make sure to check is kidney function next week.

While we were at the reunion, he started feeling worse.  The rash was spreading all over his legs and his ankles and knees were swelling up so big they looked like softballs.  The poor kid couldn't even walk.  He slept horrible at night and was constantly complaining about his stomach and ears.  And he had a fever every time the ibuprofen wore off, although he would feel really good at the beginning of every dose.  The poor kid was miserable 80% of the time!



On Monday I left another message for the doctor.  When he called me back that night and I explained to him how sick he was he wanted to bring him in the next day.  He said that he shouldn't be that sick with just the Purpura.  (Although all the literature I read did suggest the joint pain, stomach, and fever also).  Kodes pretty  much slept all day Monday.  He had his kindergarten assessment that day and pretty much stared at his teacher.  He was completely zoned out.

Tuesday I made an appointment for early afternoon.  He was feeling awful, but I wouldn't give him the Ibuprofen because I wanted him to go to this appointment with all the things that were bothering him.  Still his ears, stomach, feet, and the goop still coming out his nose.  I felt bad though cause he kept going to the cupboard and getting out the medicine because he wanted some so bad.

Once we got to the appointment, Dr. Bennett was able to see just how sick he was.  He looked over his rash which had now started to have big scabs which is not concurrent with HSP.  He now had PLEVA which is similar, but different (how's that for a description)!  Both HSP and PLEVA are not extremely common and it is not known why he would develop them.  One of the possible reasons is because of his respiratory infection.  There isn't a miraculous cure either.  Both have to run their course for several weeks to several months and in some cases can turn to a life long problem.  We are praying that this is not the case and he will be better in a few weeks.  On top of that he also has a double ear infection and a sinus infection.  He had a full blood panel, urine analysis and head x-rays done.  The x-rays showed the sinus infection.  The blood work all came back relatively normal.  There were some elevations, but they were most likely because of the infections he fighting.  He was also diagnosed with serum sickness which pretty much causes your immune system to go out of whack and fight it's self which can also be why his joints are hurting so bad.

We left the doctors office with a prescription for a heavy dose of antibiotics and steroids.  If this didn't work we would have to look into some other bad diseases.  He came home and slept pretty much the rest of the day.  Dr. B did say that he should be feeling better by the next day and if he wanted to he could go to his first day of Kindergarten.  We began all the medicine that night and that was the first night in quite a few where he actually slept all night with out coming in several times to tell me something hurt.

Today he woke up feeling so much better.  It was such a relief.  He immediately got ready for school and was disappointed to find out that it didn't start until 12:30!  Everything was looking good.  He legs didn't seem to have as many spots and his fever was gone.  He complained a little about his stomach, but that was it.  I dropped him off to school and told him to have fun.  When I went to pick him up he was in so much pain again.  He could barely walk at all.  Both feet were killing him and the rash had tripled all over his legs.  He came home from school and slept.  I took his temp and he was at 100.  When he woke up from his nap, he couldn't bend his left knee or the fingers on his left hand.  What the heck!!

what his leg looked like after school.  Notice the scabs the the new rash will turn to scabs (most likely)

About this time I started to panic.  Due to a lot of input from a lot of people over the course of the week, I had now convinced my self he had some thing really bad and was knocking on deaths door.  I called and left a message for the doctor again.  In the mean time to night, he's started to feel better and as I was talking to a friend outside, he decided to ride his bike.  I'm pretty sure anyone who saw him thought I must have been exaggerating this whole thing!!  The doctor called back tonight and pretty much reassured me that he's going to be fine, it'll just take a while.  I'm feeling much calmer.

Hadley has her doctor's appointment tomorrow so I'm just going to take him with me in case he's feeling crappy again!

Or a couple bad days in a row??

Let me preface this by saying I love my kids more than anything.  They mean the world to me and I am so lucky to have them in my life.



But boy do they know which buttons to push.  It's almost like they have the buttons held down with no release in sight.  Specifically my middle two children.

I truly believe that everyone has their moments with their children, but not everyone has a Kody!  He has the most tender heart and can produce the saddest quivering lip and puppy dog eyes when he's embarrassed or in  trouble (by someone else).  But when it comes to his parents, it's a whole other story.  He usually yells back or hits the closest thing to him.  Sometimes that closest thing happens to be human: 80% mom, 19.9% sibling, .01% dad (that last ones doesn't go over so good)!  We've tried every thing under the sun to curb this.  We've persuaded, made rules/consequences, bribed, promised, yelled, screamed, and even tried extreme patience, but there is something about this strong willed child that doesn't want to listen to his "stupid" parents.  (His favorite word right now!)  The best part is that he's teaching Ryker all his tricks.  Lucky us!

I was reading a blog not to long ago where someone had given her a plaque that said "I can do hard thing". Ever since then, I try to remind myself the same thing.

On Monday night we sat down and made some new rules that have consequences that they all made/agreed upon.  Time out, loss of wii/computer & no friends if it gets to that point.  By Tuesday morning, Kody had lost every one of those!  Lucas had to sit in time out and swore he'd be good for the rest of the day.  Kody could have cared less.  They are like night and day!

I guess he figured he was already in trouble, so why not just go all out!  He and Ryker decided to build an awesome indoor waterslide in my upstairs living room!  This made an already "at wits end" mother not so happy!  You know when you get to that point that your teeth are clenched and your fists are tight??  Or maybe I'm the only one that gets that way... but I figured the only way to keep from doing something not nice was to send him to his room.  But he didn't want to go... instead he ran down the stairs laughing!  Now I'm fuming!!  So I did what any mother would do.  I pulled his ear in the direction of the stairs!  HA... that sounds so dumb now, but at the time it was better than the alternative.  I think the thing that made me more mad was not the actual mess; but that he didn't care.  And  because he thought it was funny, so did Ryker.  Kody spent the next 45 minutes in his room and Ryker got to sit on a chair in the bathroom while I cleaned and got ready for the day. We soaked up several bath size towels full of water in both the living room and my bathroom.  This is when I wish our bathroom didn't have carpet!

Just to give you a visual, they had taken the round folding table and tipped it on its side.  Then they used plastic bags to make a slide.  They filled the humidifier container with water and dumped it down the bags so they could then slide down.  Pretty ingenious if weren't for the major mess they made.

The spent the remainder of the day in and out of trouble and both ended up taking a nap.  Luckily by that night I was able to smile about the incident and laugh about my children's creativity.  We had a good night and played baseball in the backyard while Jed was at mutual.

I can do hard things!

Life is good...

and then I woke up this morning...

my bathroom reeked of mildew and the living room didn't smell so hot either.  And then the kids started the usual morning antics.  I was mad again.  So I decided to go take a break in my stinky bathroom to wax my eyebrows.  While I was unscrewing the jar, it fell out of my hands and spilled all over the counter.  And then I realized my bra (because I hadn't showered yet) was sitting on the counter and in the middle of my now spilled jar of wax.  Not cool!!  I only own 2 braziers as it is; one is covered in a large amount of wax and the other in the dirty clothes.  Awesome... my morning is turning out great!  And then I had a brilliant idea...  I'd use one of my nursing bras and stuff them with the inserts I used to fill out my wedding dress!  I knew I kept them for a reason!  After lots of olive oil, the wax came off the counter, but the bra was a lost cause.  I think I have an idea for my Mother's Day gift!

Jess came to rescue me by taking Kody and Ryker with her for the day.  Thank you, thank you!  I was able to use the carpet cleaner to clean/suck up any excess water.  I borrowed some fans from the neighbors and they've been blowing on it ever since.  One of the guys in our ward does restoration and came to look at it. He said we should be okay, but it'll take about 3 or so days with the fans on it to be complete dry.  Hopefully the smell will disappear as the carpet pad dries.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a tiny bit disappointed that we didn't have rip up the carpet in the bathroom and replace it with tile.

So tonight I'm listening to the buzz of the fans, looking at my extremely neglected house and the pile of laundry that's beckoning...  I think we'll watch an episode of Bones!

It'll all still be here in the morning... and tomorrow WILL be a better day!  I'm going to make sure of it because I can do hard things!

Hadley, Hadley, Hadley... you're growing up way to fast.  Please stop... oh wait, she did!


Yesterday was her 6 months check up and found out she's not doing so good on the gaining scale.

Weight: 12.3 lbs (some where in the less than 1% or lower)
Height: 25 in (less than 25%)
Head: 15 3/4 in. (less that 3%)

Put those all together and we have a little girl that has completely fallen off the charts!  And here I just thought she was just my petite little thing.  So, I was told yesterday that she has to go on formula.  I'm really bummed for 2 reasons:

1.  Because I was determined to nurse longer with her.  At least until her teeth started coming in.
2.  Because I didn't want to add formula to an already tight budget.

But my plan backfired!

Here's the problem...  this little girl will not take a bottle.  Partly might fault.  My pump broke after Ryker and so I haven't pumped at all with her therefore she's never needed a bottle.  When I tried to give her one a month or so ago, she gagged.  The taste of formula makes her gag.  Any sort of cereal or baby food makes her gag.  Many times the gagging is accompanied by throwing up.  We have our work cut out for us.  Hopefully I can start pumping today so that maybe with breast milk and a bottle she'll be more likely to take it.  Fingers crossed.  If not, I have to feed her from a cup and that just sounds like a mess!!  Slowly I'll be working formula into the mix and we'll head back for a weight check in 2 weeks.

So what's the "skinny" on my milk problem?  Not really sure.  It could be one of two things.  Either I'm no longer producing enough to support her growing body, or my milk has very little calories in it this go round.  I'm leaning towards the second only because she doesn't act likes she's starving.  Who knows!  Maybe she's like Lucas who lost almost a pound after he was born and didn't gain any back til we started supplementing with formula.  Or maybe my body isn't cut out for nursing past 6 months since that's when I stopped with Kody & Ryker.  Either way, she's too small and we have to do something about it.  The doctor did say to hold off on solid foods for now until we can get her on switched to formula and gaining weight.

Now on to the fun list!

At 6 months:
1.  She wakes up the happiest, smiliest baby ever!
2.  She still loves to be swaddled and sleeps so good when she is.  This will be hard one for me to break if it means her waking up a lot.
3.  She loves her binky!
4.  She's starting to move in circles on the floor.
5.  She knows when she's being held by a brother.... one 2 year old in particular... and doesn't like it one bit!
6.  She's getting some wispy hair on top.  Some days I think she'll be brown but other days the hair growing in looks a little blonde.  Time will tell.
7.  She wants to eat really bad, but doesn't like it in her mouth.  Although she did such on a pizza crust the other day.
8.  She's still a spitter.  Another reason why I'm not excited about formula... spit up stinks (and so does their poop).
9.  She lets me still glue bows in her hair and she's okay with headbands.
10.  She is the best dressed little girl!  I love all her little little shoes, baby leggs, cardigans, jeggings, etc.
11.  She melts us each time she smiles or laughs.  She has the cute smile ever.
12.  She can sit up for short periods of time.
13.  She's the most easy going, relaxed baby who doesn't cry unless there's a reason.
14.  She has 4 boys in the his house wrapped around her finger!


We love you Miss Hadley!  We are so glad you are part of our family.

It feels so good to be home!  5 days of staring down hospital walls is enough for me to take.  To think I did 10 days of this 3 years ago... how did I not go crazy!

Lucas did so good through the night and stayed completely off the oxygen.  Dr. Bennett came in this morning and gave us the run down of everything we need to do once we get home.  He needs to stay on his Asthma medicine (2 of them) for the next few days and then maintain for the rest of the winter.  He'll also be taking a steroid for the next 3 days.

I had them take his O2 stat right before we left and it was at 91.  Not great, but good enough to go home.  It will continue to increase as he also gets over the wheezing and coughing.

He was very excited to leave, but now that were home, I think he's missing the x-box and the freedom to play  it whenever.

Just as I pulled into the driveway this morning, the hospital called and told me I had left my phone charger.  So back to the hospital I went.  Just couldn't get enough of the place!  Good thing we were at the hospital in Payson.

This morning he woke up with a really bad headache and threw up twice.  Part because of the headache and part because of coughing.  They ordered another chest x-ray which just showed signs of Asthma.  They've decided to treat the asthma pretty aggressively with steroids, albuterol every 4 hrs, and flovent.  They gave him an oral steroid, even though I told him he throws them back up.  Yup... 30 seconds later up came all his breakfast.  After that he had to have the shot in his arm.  He wasn't to excited, but whatever works!

Lucas has a thing for hospitals and making sure we use our insurance to the fullest!  It has now been a little over 48 hours since he was admitted to the hospital here in Payson.

It started back on Tuesday when I decided to keep him home from school because he woke up with a bad cough.  Kody had been coughing the week before and I figured he must have shared with his brother.  Wednesday was even worse and his eyes were really really blood shot.  That evening I finally took him to see the doctor at the clinic.  Because it was after hours, we didn't see our regular doctor.  He checked him out and decided that due to an infection his asthma had flaired up and was making him extremely wheezy.  The checked is oxygen stats and they were around 87.  I had instructions to take him the Payson office where this specific doctor (Dr. Bartholomew) would be working the next day just so he could test his O2 stats again.


Thursday morning Lucas woke up feeling fine.  If it hadn't been for doctors orders the previous night, I might have sent him to school.  I almost didn't end up taking him to get tested because he seemed all back to normal although his color was a little off. I dropped Kody off to preschool and the rest of us headed to Payson.  The nurses checked his oxygen and I was shocked to see it at 84.  They tried different fingers and everything.  84 is to low!  The immediately consulted the doctor who was doing rounds at the hospital.  He called up to pediatrics and within a few minutes we were on the 3rd floor getting all situated.


He was put on oxygen and given a breathing treatment.  When the doctor came in to check in on him he also ordered an IV since he was extremely dehydrated and his color was was not good.  He oxygen monitor kept going off so they kept increasing the liters.  By the time they got it above 88 he was at 4 liters. (What ever that means!)  He had a chest x-ray done, lab work & a viral nose study thing.he

For some reason I wasn't thinking this was super serious and thought we'd be here for a little while and then head home.  HA!!  The x-ray came back clear so it was determined that he had probably a viral pneumonia that also triggered an asthma flair up.  Over the next little bit they worked on lowering the O2, but eventually they'd have to turn it back up.  He slept off and on and played a little Xbox.  When he was sleeping his O2 monitor would go off quite regularly.  They did breathing treatments quite often, but sometimes I felt that they didn't do anything.  Jed slept with him that night I went home with Hadley.  My sister had been watching Kody an Ryker that afternoon and evening.  Hadley was starting to sound horrible and junky and didn't sleep very good that night.  Jed says he was up a lot more with Lucas, but I'm not so sure! :)

Friday I came around 9 with the kids to trade Jed.  He took the day off work and stayed home with Kody & Ryker.  Lucas seemed to be doing about the same.  He had had several breathing treatments through out the night and had continued to cough a lot.  About 11 that morning the doctor came in to check on him.  He was really struggling with his oxygen stats so they tried to put a mask on him.  He freaked out big time and started crying and yelling that he couldn't breathe.  I'm not to fond of the mask either since it gives a feeling of claustrophobia.  But the nose tube wasn't cutting it anymore so we had to do something.  Right after that he spiked a 103 fever and kept crying and saying his head hurt really really bad.  By the way he was acting, I was pretty sure his head was going to explode.  This was the first time I got really nervous.  I'm so grateful that the doctor happened to be here during all of this.  Another x-ray was ordered, more blood work, and a heavy dose of Motrin was given.  He was on fire and I felt so bad.  They wouldn't let him leave the room, so the x-ray team brought up the portable machine and did it right here.  I was given a roll up tape and tubing and rigged up a make shift blow-by that I taped to his pillow.  This way he didn't have to wear the mask, but he was getting more than just the nose tube.  He had to keep it right next to his mouth, but it worked for the majority of the day and as long as he didn't move, his stats stayed ok.  The doc sat down with me after things were under control and said he had a very serious lung infection and would need to start antibiotics.  He had gone down to look at the x-ray and was pretty sure there was a start of strep pneumonia in the left lung.  The radiologist ended up reading it the same way.  I felt so bad because he just kept looking at me with tears in his eyes saying he wanted to go home.


Jed and our friend Brett came a little while later to give him a blessing.  By this point that meds had kicked in, he had slept, and he had done a complete 180.  It was crazy to say the least.  I couldn't believe that just a couple hours before he looked awful.  That night he felt much better but still struggled with the O2.  It was starting to maintain a little bit more so they lowered the liters and he was okay until about 3 in the morning when the monitor kept going off again.


I came in about 7:30 this morning to relive Jed so that he could go to work for a little while.  Brett and Jen helped us with Kody and Ryker for a few hours today!  Today has been the best day so far.  He's been weaned to 1 liter and as stayed around 92.  He has an IV antibiotic every 8 hours and 1 by mouth once a day.  Hopefully whatever decided to take up residence is being evicted pronto!!  I'm hoping maybe tomorrow is our lucky day.



My parents are coming down today to get Ryker & Kody for a few days.  They'll be in heaven and it'll be nice to get Lucas back on the healthy side.

Thank you for all the prayers, calls, concerns, and love!  We really really appreciate it.  We could not ask for better family and friends.

P.S.  For some reason I can't seem to remember to bring my camera to the hospital.  Horrible phone pics will have to do for now.