Jacob and Dwight went to the Priesthood session of conference tonight. It looks like they had a good time. I wish I had taken the picture when they still had their ties and suit coats on. They sure looked handsome!

2 Ear Infections

We went to see Dr. Rhame today. (Have I mentioned that he's really the very best pediatrician ever?) Ryan has no fever today, but is still draining fluid from his right ear. A lot of fluid. The verdict: both ears are infected and the right ear drum is ruptured (again).

Rx: 10 days of Amoxicillin. If he's starts running a fever again, or if his ear is still draining on Monday, then we'll go back in to see Dr. Rhame again.

He slept in 15 minute increments last night. So, needless-to-say, I am very tired tonight. I'm hoping to get a good night's sleep.

Dwight was a sweetheart tonight and took care of all the kids plus Kelli's little girl, Rebecca, while Kelli and I went to a Fab Friday. Fab Friday was basically a ladies night out for making crafts. I made a great magnetic board, and Kelli made 4 magnets for me. Plus, I etched a family name on to two glass Pyrex pans to use as a wedding gift next month. I'll have to take pictures tomorrow of both projects.

I'm super tired so I'll post more tomorrow.

Ryan woke up in a really good mood today. He hasn't had a fever for a couple of days now. I thought he must have kicked whatever it was just with extra rest and fluids. But, then when we started therapy, I laid Ryan down and noticed he had some kind of puss oozing from his ear.

It seems he has an ear infection. I called the Pediatrician. He called in a prescription for Amoxicillin and will see him first thing in the morning.

I'm a little bummed about this. Obviously, I don't want the munchkin to have an ear infection. But, I was also looking forward to a couple of days without any appointments. Oh, well. I'm thankful it's just an ear infection and not something contagious.

My friend, Kelli came into town tonight. It's so great to see her! Kelli brought her 2 year old with her also. Deborah and Rebecca seem to be really enjoying each other! I think we'll take them to the zoo tomorrow. It should be fun!

Just thought you'd enjoy seeing that Jacob has been hard at work on school stuff.

Seriously????

Seriously????

I suppose I should say, Wow! That's really cool! But, seriously??? That's great that a Mom has time to do beautiful, creative hairstyles on her little girls. But, really??? Is there really a Mom out there that has enough extra time to create a blog on it? And, did you see the number of followers???

I'm bewildered. Maybe I'd follow it, too, IF Deborah would hold still for more than 2 seconds at a time. I can't imagine trying to do a string of "double knots" on a child who is giggling and jumping the entire time.

Sorry for the sarcasm...

Things always seem a little better in the morning...

Today's Neurologist Appointment

I just got home about 30 minutes ago. It's been a very long day, but I wanted to quickly let you know what the Neurologist said today. We are increasing Ryan's Lamictal and keeping the Keppra dosage the same. We'll do this for 2 months and then we anticipate lowering the Keppra, if there is no increase in seizure activity.

We are going to do another MRI in late October. We've known since January, when we did the 1st MRI, that we would need to do another MRI. This 2nd MRI should give us a more definitive idea of the diagnosis for Ryan.

Dr Seals also checked Ryan's head circumference today, it has slowed in growth. He's now in about the 75th or 80th percentile. He also checked Ryan's reflexes today. In May, Dr Seals had recorded "2+ reflexes", which I think means "normal". But today, he was unable to elicit any reflex response from Ryan. I suspect that's not a good thing.

I'll update more later. I'm tired tonight and think I'll head to bed.

Update on Ryan

Ryan started running a low grade fever Sunday night. He went to bed at his usual 10'ish and woke up at 1 with the "scared-to-death" cry. There seemed to be nothing I could do to soothe him. This lasted for about 2 minutes. (Our neurologist thinks these may be "break through seizures.") He did this about 3 times and then finally went back to sleep at about 2 am.

When I still hadn't heard anything from Ryan at 10.30 am on Monday, I started to worry a little. I went into check on him and was so relieved when I felt his chest moving up and down. He didn't stir at all to my touch. I decided to let him sleep a little while longer. I went in again at 11.30 am. He was still doing fine. I went in again at 12.30 pm and changed his diaper. He slept through the whole thing. Did not stir, at all. I checked in on him again at 1.30, and finally decided to wake him at 2 pm. I got him out of bed and spent the next 45 minutes getting him to drink his medicine, drop by drop. He was asleep again by 3 pm. He slept most of the rest of the day with just brief periods of wakefulness.

I took his temperature and it was at 101 degrees F at 2 pm and down to 99 degrees F by 9 pm that evening. He repeated the same "scared-to-death" cry last night, but woke at his usual 9.30 am. He has been running a low-grade fever (not higher than 100) all day, and has been unusually cranky. However, he has been more wakeful today. He doesn't appear to be cutting teeth. His congestion has cleared up quite a bit. I don't see anything that is concerning, other than his fever, his crankiness, and his unusual sleep patterns.

He has been having clusters of seizures today. It's my understanding though that additional seizures are pretty typical when a child with a seizure disorder has a fever or an illness.

My day is already crazy busy tomorrow, but I'm thinking I probably need to squeeze in an appointment to see the Pediatrician. Maybe he has an ear infection? We have an appointment with the Neurologist tomorrow afternoon. Unfortunately, he's the best of the best so it'll probably take 6-8 hours.

I've only had about 4 hours of sleep for the past few nights. So, I'm off to bed. I have some fun updates and pictures of the other kids. I'll try to get to them tomorrow night! I'll be sure to post an update on the appointments tomorrow. Keep him in your prayers, please. Love you all!

Great Harvest Tour

Today we went on a tour of the Great Harvest Bread Company here in San Antonio. Kent Gottfredson, the owner, did the tour and was GREAT with the kids! All of the kids ... even Johnathon ... were enthralled with the tour and had a great time. At the end of the tour, they gave all of us free bread samples, a small loaf of their delicious honey wheat bread, some wheat seeds to plant, and a coupon. It was lots of fun! A great way to spend a school day.