It's still probably pertussis

I wanted to give everybody an update on Felix. I didn't want to do it sooner in case he fell victim to the Buffalo Pharmer curse, but it really looks like he's going to be OK at this point. We've been out of the hospital for six days, and each day in which hospitalization is not necessary improves his chances. He's still sick, but now it looks like a baby normally would when sick, instead of the constant, heart-breaking coughing. We never got the pertussis culture back, so we don't know for sure if he has that.

Xander got the same thing Felix had, but RSV is a total monster in infants so in Xander it didn't really seem to slow him down. He slept a little more, coughed a lot, and had a runny nose. At this point, I'm thankful that not only did we stay out of the hospital, I didn't have to miss any work and only skipped one day of classes. Things could have been so much worse.

The outpouring of support from friends and family was incredible. Thank you to everyone who included us in your thoughts, prayers, pagan sacrifices, or whatever. It obviously made a difference; Felix stayed out of the hospital simply by the grace of God.

Unless one of the boys takes a turn for the worse, I should resume regular posts next week. Thanks for stopping by.

It's probably pertussis

Yesterday I mentioned Felix was sick. Today at the doctor's office they told us it's probably pertussis and RSV. The RSV part doesn't worry me too much; that's a common infection. I'm sure Xander had it at some point. Pertussis is a serious deal. At this point, we have an appointment every day for the rest of the week so they can monitor him, and they told us if he starts wheezing or has trouble breathing we need to go to the hospital. Honestly, I'm terrified of that.

There may be no greater feeling of helplessness than having a seriously ill child. Granted, we aren't talking about serious illness in the same sense as my friends whose baby was born with seizures, or the unluckiest percentage of the population who have to take a child for chemotherapy, but this is not just a common cold. At this point, we have to be prepared to hospitalize him to receive oxygen treatments. That's not something I want to think about, let alone do. A baby on oxygen is heartbreaking image. The thought of seeing my baby on oxygen is a nightmare.

Right now, Felix is still at home. I'm skipping class tomorrow to be with Xander while Jaime takes him to his daily appointment. Hopefully, his body fights off the infection and he recovers without complication, but there are a lot of scenarios that don't turn out that well. I'm scared.

I'm back

I was going to stop posting, but then a friend told me he had been checking for new posts and hadn't seen them. So a quick update:

I passed everything in the fall semester, even though I didn't go to class for two weeks after Felix was born. My grades weren't super, but I finished strong and now the spring semester is winding down. I'm totally exhausted most of the time, and I'm going to be very happy if I can pull a C in each of my classes. This semester, I participated in two electives, which was ill-advised. It's going to make next spring easier, because that's the time that electives are scheduled into the curriculum. The third year spring is dominated by the Comprehensive Patient Care course, which is a 9-credit-hour capstone course that combines everything we've learned throughout the curriculum. It's entirely different from everything up to that point, and many students struggle mightily with it. Having those electives out of the way will let me focus on that.

Both boys are healthy and adorable. Felix eats well, although we did have to put him on Prevacid to help with some GERD. It's been my experience that second-time parenting is about a hundred times easier. There are a lot fewer surprises. I also love learning more and more about his personality. It's amazing, but with the same parents our two boys are already obviously different from each other. Xander seems to be really kinetic. He likes to dance to music of any kind. Felix, on the other hand, likes to sing along. Jaime will sing to him, and he'll make little baby singing sounds back - in key! He's also amazingly even cuter than Xander was at that age.

That's a lot of update in just a few words. I'll be back within the week with some more content, but I wanted to get something out there while I had the chance. Thanks for stopping by.