Sawing logs

Sigh...dear readers, I tell you, there is never a dull moment in this house.

You need to know that although she is way ahead of most of her peers in many things, Eleanor does not excell at all when it comes to sleeping. She does okay for the first few hurs, but then the chainsaws come out and she snores like an old man. This combined with apnea events make for a very restless night when you share a space with E. She also has had some NASTY ear infections.

So today, on the advice from Eleanor's beloved Dr. Lawler , we met with the ENT specialist. He did an exam, and she is now scheduled for an Adenoidectomy, a Tonsillectomy, and a possible Right Myringotomy and tube. Everyone a mass of tissue in the back of their noses where the nose and the throat come together, which is the adenoid, and then two more masses on either side of their throat, which are the tonsills.

If either the adenoid or the tonsils are enlarged, it can mean infections. The other thing that an enlarged adnoid can do is block the Eustachian tube, the one that runs from your ear to your throat and then cause ear infections. In Eleanor's case, both of her tonsills and her adnoid are extremely enlarged, which is why she sounds like a Stihl MS 880 when she "sleeps." The doctor thinks this is also why she is having so many ear infections, as the Eustachian tube can't drain properly. So on July 14, our brave little Ellie will go under the knife and come out with far less facial mass than the average human. Hopefully this will solve a miriad of problems for her.

Well that is our health update for the moment. Until next time, sniff.

All the news that's fit to print

So where to begin?? It’s been so long since last our paths crossed dear readers! Our summer has been busy indeed, and I am sure you are assuming that since we last spoke, the girls are in college and have 6-figure jobs pending! Well, not quite. They are, however, 5 months old and are delightfully changing in many ways, both literally and tongue in cheekish.

The Bear and Poo-tato
So anyone who knows Abigail, knows she has a penchant for the dramatic. Well earlier this month, around August 3rd, she decided to start crying. This apparently was a great decision for her, and one that intended to fully commit to, so she did. For 3 full days. Let me tell ya, it was GRAND! And to make matters even better, we were supposed to leave for vacation on August 7 (driving to Colorado-see more specifics on THAT adventure in my next post). Therefore, fearing another UTI, we called the doctor, who squeezed her in (no pun intended, which will make sense after you finish reading this section) to see our most favorite doctor next to our regular doctor, Dr. Jones. (Incidentally, we have Dr. Jones to thank for discovering Monkey’s heart murmur. It was so slight and so erratic, that the other doctor missed it.) They took her temp, listened to her chest, checked her mouth and ears, nothing. However, when she had her UTI last time, everything was normal, too. It was not until they did the urine culture that time that they found that it was so teeming with bacteria, it could have walked out of her urinary tract. (How’s THAT for a visual?) So they did a urine culture this time, nothing…still screaming!! So, as a last resort, he had a tummy X-Ray done. That was a challenge. Bear, who is normally not the wiggly one, decided to channel her sister when getting the pictures taken. Luckily, we got one good one that showed a very clear, very large potato-sized poop on board. So after a little prune juice, a couple of baby enemas, and enough Pampers Swaddlers to fill a small landfill, little Bear has lost her internal tuber, but has gained a new nickname: Tator Tot.

Toofers
All you all who think I am talking about beer, get your minds off the bar rail. Not 2 for 1s, toofers, teeth. The other thing adding to Bear’s discomfort last week was the fact that she got teeth, 2 to be exact. AT THE SAME TIME. What can I say, I have borne an over-achiever. So I guess, in a sense this does pertain to beer and 2 for 1s, in that after her getting 2 at once, I needed a toofer special! To make it even more interesting, I think she is now getting top ones. Stay tuned to see if she is able to cut them mathematically.

All Bear, No Monkey? What’s up with that??
Just so you don’t think that I am preferential to Baby B, here’s the scoop on the Monkey. Baby E is making some strides of her own. She now rolls, rolls well, and rolls A LOT! She also have been seeing a physical therapist for her crooked head. When she was still in the womb, as most of you know, she was smashed up against the wall by the big bruty Bear. Therefore, in effort to get a little room, she slid down the birth canal a bit, which caused her head to be misshapen and her to hold her head crooked. This is an actual condition called torticollis. According to torticolliskids.org (yes there is a website for everything), torticollis is most often caused by a shortening of the sterno-cleido-mastoid muscle in your neck. It’s that big one that you rub when your neck gets stiff. The condition is kinda like when women wear high heels all the time-after a while, those muscles shorten up because the aren’t being stretched to their normal length. I read about all the stuff that COULD happen with this condition before her first appointment and there are some scary things out there! Torti-collars, helmets for misshapen heads, surgery, YIKES! Needless to say, I was really nervous for the first appointment. So now, Monkey has gone in for therapy twice, and because her dad has a background in PT and is super diligent, she is much better. When she went in for the first time, she would not turn her head completely to the right. Now she does both and will track a toy from over her right shoulder to over her left. The therapist says that she is very certain that E will outgrow this and will not need a collar or a helmet. Thank GOD! She has special exercises that she and Daddy do, and she is being encouraged to roll all she wants, which is fine by her!
Another super cute development is her vocalization. She never stops talking. She even talks through her yawns. You know how when you exhale during a yawn and make that loud sigh noise? She does that. She growls, she squeaks, she does this thing where she sucks in her breath and makes noise, a little like a gasp but not. She even talks through eating her cereal. Way cute. WAY cute.
The Monkey is also working on teeth, although, having bore witness to Sister’s trials, I think she is a little leery about that eventuality. Can’t stop change, Baby!

Wait for it
So rather than innudate you with everything at once and blow up the system, I will devote a separate entry for the uber-vacay of the century. That way we can all relive it together. Now won't that be fun??!? So until later, courage.

Living in the seventh layer of Hell

So it's been a while since we last posted. I blame that on the fact that my hands are literally melting off my body. It's so freakin hot here, I think we are actually living on the sun. It just doesn't seem right that one should sweat when all he or she is doing is breathing. Oi, I say.



I HEART YOU


When Monkey was a few days old, the doctor heard a slight heart murmur. He said that if she still had it when she went to her 2 month appointment, she would need to see a cardiologist. Well it didn't disappear, so last Wednesday, she went in to see Dr. Baker. As he was listening to her heart, she was flirting up a storm, smiling and looking at him through her eyelashes. Little Monkey, going for the older men!

Anyway, after a really long appointment including an echocardiogram, we found out that she has three defects in her heart structure. And now I get to dazzle you again with my fake medical knowledge:

• Periphoral Pulmonary Stenosis (which is causing the murmur): This is a narrowing of the main artery or arteries of the heart. The doctor thinks that E has a narrowing of both. According to the University of Virginia's website, some issues that can occur are swelling and fluid retention as well as heart infections. Eleanor's is not nearly this bad. She just needs to be watched.








• Right Aortic Arch with mirror image branching: Instead of the aorta going over one of the branches of the trachea that goes into the lungs, it wraps around the whole trachea and esophogus. What can happen is as she grows, that aortic arch could constrict the esophogus and trachea. This is another thing to watch.

• High takeoff of the left pulmonary artery: I think this is the main artery that goes to Monkey's left lung. It is high-arched, meaning, I think, that it could constrict blood-flow to her left lung. When she goes back, she will have to have a chest x-ray to make sure that lung is doing okay. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a picture of this.

So overall, she is fine. We will just have to watch the conditions, and, like Bear, she will have to be monitored by a specialist to make sure that things are doing okay.

Other news not as complex

Per usual, nothing new is going on. We both have the Fourth off, which is cool. I was so ready for a break, even though I have only worked 2 days this week!

Both babies are sounding sick, snotty, coughish, and somewhat lethargic. They are drooling like mad, so maybe it's teeth. Scary! Doesn't it seem like just yesterday that they were tiny?!

Well I should get back to my task at hand:embroidering kitchen towels for my cousin's wedding. And with no babies, this is my chance to motor through!

Take care and until next time, stay cool!

-s-

Longest Entry Ever.

You outta be in pictures
So I ripped this off from Sarah and Tim, too. Monkey and Bear have their own picture page now. Their web address is monkeybeargacek.googlepages.com/home. There is also a permenant link to it over on the right disguised as "Aren't we cute??" As the page says, this is the best of the best, since, following in the tradition of all first-born children born after the instamatic was invented, there probably a good 1000 photos of these guys out there in the world. The page is under constant construction, so don't be surprised if the layout and pictures change or have changed since last you were there.

Not exactly dinner-time reading
Since Abigail's disappointing diagnosis last week, today was Eleanor's big day at the doctor. What?! You didn't hear about the Bear's condition?! Well, let me not only enlighten you with specifics, let me dazzle you with my limited yet extremely impressive medical knowledge.
About 3 weeks ago, we took Abigail in to the doctor for a fever and a cough. After a long, painful appointment, it was determined that the main symptom for which she came in, the cough, was the least of her worries. She had a urinary tract infection, not a very common thing in babies her age.
Because she was so young, her doctor's fear was that she had Vesicoureteral Reflux (ves-i-ko-you-ree-te-al ree-fluks). Normally, urine flows down into the bladder where it waits until it's voided out of the body. But when a person has Vesicoureteral Reflux, the urine flows out of the kidneys toward the bladder, but refluxes back up toward the kidneys. Because urine is a waste product, it has a lot of bacteria and when it flows back up toward the kidneys, a urinary tract infection can happen. If it happens enough and the condition is at a high enough level, there can be kidney damage. The other bad thing about this is that this condition is hereditary; 30% of people who have this, have a sibling with it. With twins, the instance is 50%. Therefore, if Abigail had it, Eleanor has to be tested, since she has a 50-50 chance of having it.
In order to find out if this was happening to Abigail, she had to go to Children's Hospital and have a test called a Voiding Cystourethrogram, VCUG for short. Well, long story short, Bear has it and her's is level 2 of a 5 point scale. She has to be on a daily dose of Amoxicilan until she is 6 months old, then switches to a broader spectrum drug until it goes away. This is to keep the bacteria in her urine at a minimum so it doesn't create any more UTIs. The good news, according to our doctor, is "that she will probably grow out of this by the time she is 3 or 4!" Well thank GOD for that! Poor Bear. Poor Bear's bum. Think about what happens to you when you have been on antibiotics for a week and then think about Abigail. Let's just say we will be keeping the Butt Paste people in buisness for the next 4 years!
So back to Eleanor. Today was her big date with destiny. Monkey's scan was different than Abigail's. Since she wasn't symptomatic, she had a scan that uses a lower dose of radiation and simply detects how the lower parts of the urinary tract are operating. This test isn't read right away, so we won't know if she has the reflux for a few days yet. If she does, she will have to have the VCUG and be on the dose of antibiotics, too. Yuck.
But not only did the Monkey have her turn at radiology, she also went to see the regular doctor. Yes, Eleanor has a lovely, auditorily pleasing, hacking, wet cough which has been plaguing her (no pun intended) for about 2 weeks. Since this is my last day of leave, sniff, sniff, I thought she should be seen, just to make sure she didn't have something like pneumonia or consumption. Upon examination, we were releaved to hear that she just has a nasty chest cold, no Moulin Rouge/Rent/La Boheme reinactments will be taking place here. We also found out that little E is now 9lbs 7.5oz, a half a pound more than she was at last check-up. Way to go Monkey!

In closing...FINALLY!
Nothing else too exciting is happening...Miles and I have a bocce game going-I am winning 2 to 1, but I am sure he will kick my butt in the end. We are working on painting the trim to the house. It's an awesome celery green. I ca't wait to see it when it's done. And the Gaceks have nothing planned this weekend other than church on Sunday. What a good feeling!
Wish me luck on Monday. I will really need it. And wish the Monkey luck, too. 1 baby on antibiotics is really all our family needs. So until next time...paper.