Often when I sit down at my desk to write the blog, I pause with my fingers over the keys on the keyboard, close my eyes, and think, "What happened this week?" Then, I'll remember something, and then think, "Wait, was that last week, or this week?" Often times, I'll go back and re-read last week's post to see when things actually happened.This week was particularly foggy, because something highly unusual happened--I got sick. I had a cold that I caught from Lemon a couple of weeks ago (the one that almost got him admitted to the hospital way back in Week 178) and it's lingered on. I got mostly better but not totally. Then, on Wednesday, things suddenly got much worse, incredible congestion and headache etc. Thursday that progressed into a fever, chills, and inability to function in a standing position. Once Papa Bear got home from work, I got on the phone to my saintly parents, and a short while later, my dad (aka Opa) arrived to drive me to Urgent Care, since I didn't think it was safe for me to drive myself. After an hour or so of waiting in what I can only describe as a serious pit of contagion, I got seen by someone who confirmed my self-diagnosis of a bad sinus infection. A prescription for augmentin and Flonase later (where have I heard of that combination before?), and I was back home in bed, where I remained for most of Friday until the antibiotics kicked in.
And they kicked in just in the nick of time, because as soon as I became barely able to function again, first Lime and then Lemon came down with some sort of unrelated 24 hour kid virus, the main symptoms of which were a moderate fever and unbelievably intense whingy/clingy behavior which persisted from mid-day Saturday through Sunday evening. This illness gave us a chance to try out the hydration plan for Lemon that we'd developed with our nutritionist in October, so we dutifully pumped 50mL of Gatorade cut with water into his belly every hour on the hour while he was awake. He found the idea of pushing bright red liquid into his belly pretty entertaining and wanted to do the syringes himself. Drinking the stuff by mouth was, of course, of no interest whatsoever. In any event, both he and Lime are more or less back to their usual selves now, and hopefully (fingers crossed) we weathered that whole episode without setting off any kind of downward spiral, but only time will tell. Ask me again next week, and if everything is still OK then, I will be feeling pretty good about it.
In other news, as promised, Lemon's pediatrician filed the form with our insurance company to request coverage for a consult at the clinic in Milwaukee. And, less than 48 hours later, the company rejected our request, saying that the services that we were requesting were available at our in-network provider. The thing is, they're not, really, but at least for the moment I think we're not going to fight this battle. We feel like we have a lot of future battles with our insurance company, and don't want to go to the mat for this one. Now, we're going to try something that, as everyone who's tried knows, is nearly impossible: we will contact the hospital in Milwaukee and find out how much it would actually cost to go there and have a consult with one of the docs. This should be interesting.
I took Lemon to get his blood drawn earlier this week, and his pediatrician himself (?!?!?) called me up to let me know the results--his liver tests are much closer to normal now than they were in October. Still not totally normal, but he's actually never had results in the normal range on these tests. So, we'll retest in another few months and see where things are, and maybe at that hypothetical consult in Milwaukee we'll see if we can get someone else's opinion as to whether those slightly high numbers mean anything or not.
Finally, I called the specialty pharmacy to get a refill on our prescription for Cayston, so that we'll have it on hand should we need it. Given the amount of effort that it took to get the first installment, I had anticipated that this would be the first in a long series of calls. Instead, I got, "We could deliver it on Wednesday if that would work for you." I've become highly suspicious of things that seem too easy, but I'll take it!
