The Max and Lucy Family Wing

In the not too distant future, I am sure there will be a wing named after our family at the kids' pediatrician's office. They recently moved into a beautiful new office that I am sure we helped fund the past four years. We may have broken a new record over the past week...4 visits in 3 days to their offices. Let me preface this post by saying that neither of our children care much for the common childhood illnesses that are easily treated with chicken soup and rest. They prefer to take the more exciting route of developing illnesses that often result in the phrases "I've never seen this before." or "I will have to do some research and get back to you." being uttered by our fabulous, even if sometimes perplexed, healthcare providers.

Lucy’s hairy tongue diagnosis last winter definitely tops the list…a very common diagnosis among drug users. Our 6 month old bundle of joy developed a very green, very fuzzy tongue for about a month. For a bit of time, I had taken to introducing her as “Her name is Lucy. And, yes, I know she has a green tongue.” Lulu can now add Hand, Foot and Mouth disease to her list of bizarre ailments. After a rough weekend of fevers and crankiness, we took her to get checked out on Monday night…fully expecting an ear infection. Nope, she has HFM. Oh well, at least we don’t have to give her anything for it…it should clear on its own.

Max enjoys the company of nurses very much…so much so that he cannot seem to go more than a few months without seeing one. While he can’t top Lucy’s green tongue, he does like to acquire illnesses that tend to sideline him for longer than normal tykes…including RSV, pneumonia, rotavirus and numerous sinus infections. He also has EE…a rare diagnosis in and of itself…even more rare to be diagnosed in a 1 year old. He had sinus surgery last winter…which is often met with doctors saying “I have never heard of it being done on someone so young.” He is definitely one of those kids that I dread “well” checks – I always feel that we walk out with more specialists than we walked in with! We took him to be checked out on Monday night with Lucy because of his sinuses…we can add another sinus infection to his list. As soon as we got home, he started getting into his PJ’s and I noticed a huge, red rash all over his belly…of course, this was not there FIVE minutes ago at the doctor’s office. I hoped it would clear by Tuesday morning…knowing full well that there was no way Mystery Diagnosis Boy would let me off the hook that easily. After Chris’ horrific dentist appointment with Beefy, he had the pleasure of taking him back to the ped’s to get the rash looked at…turns out it is an innocent skin reaction to something. Just so we didn’t feel too let down, though, she did notice another type of rash that concerned her that we didn’t even notice on his arms…so we are on monitoring duty for a few days in hopes that clears up with no further tests needed.

I started out in college as a pre-med major and quickly changed after my first sociology class. I am thinking I could have saved us lots of time and money if I just stuck to my original major!