Sitting Pretty

We had a little instruction on how to use Photoshop (and by we I mean Brent because it was all over my head) and this is the project that he and Uncle Kim put together.

Oh, she just adorable. She has recovered well from her bout of pneumonia. She is back to her old self and is continuing to learn new tricks every day. Just before she got sick she was starting to get the hang of "uh-oh" but while she was sick she hardly said anything and didn't do much either. But, just the other day she dropped something out of her stroller and looked at me, "Uh-oh!" She said that all on her own! I didn't even have to remind her of the word or concept. She's a smart little cookie.

Other things that Sam does well for her age: she pretends well. She's handed me toys that didn't exist and pretended to grab a wipe and then pretend blew her nose on it. Another thing is putting coins in her toy piggy bank. She can twist her hand just right so they fit in there. She loves praise when she does something she's proud of. So one night our friends were over and she tried to get the coin in. She was so excited to show off that she didn't quite get the coin in. When she looked for her praise our friend pointed out that the coin wasn't in yet. Sam looked at it, picked up the coin, made a feeble attempt at getting it in the slot, tossed it slyly out of view and then looked at my friend for praise. She clapped her hands and was so pleased with herself. She's a joker, but she also likes to get praise. That's a good insight into her personality. I'm storing that piece of information for later as I'm sure it will come into play again and again.

She's starting to get on her feet, but she hasn't mastered balance yet and hasn't even attempted to stand on her own. But, she's showing all the signs of figuring it out. We went to the library the other day and she sat mesmerized by all the children running and walking around the library. Whenever one of them was particularly quick or bouncy in the movements Sam would squeal with joy and cap her hands. She even made a friend! A little girl about twice her age walked over to her and they stared at each other for several long, would-be awkward but strangely not minutes. They liked the look of each other, but they weren't sure what to do about it.

She has figured out how to play with the boys during Sunday School. I guess that they sit at the back of the room and let the three of them crawl around each other and share their toys. They are all pretty good at offering a toy and then refusing to let go of it! Sam's the queen of that trick. I wouldn't know personally since I'm in Primary with my 6-year-old class of adorable girls.

A New Diagnosis

She still had a fever on Thursday when I called the doctor's office to get the prescription for the new antibiotic. Her doctor said he would like to see her so I got a substitute for my class and took her to the doctor at 11:20. He was worried about all of her symptoms, but mostly about her continued fever. It was still over 100 when we brought her in and that was after 24 hours of alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen. He said if her temperature was still over 100 on Friday to get a chest x-ray to see if it was something more.

Friday at 6 am her fever was 103 so I figured I'd bring her in when they opened at 9:00. So just before 9:00 am I woke Sam up and took her temperature again and it was only 98.7. So we figured the antibiotic was working and we didn't worry about it. That evening her temperature climbed back over 100 and we thought maybe we should have had the chest x-ray done. Then, this morning it was 100.7 so I woke Brent up (it was 9:00 am already) and we got ready to take her to the hospital for the x-ray. A doctor was at Sam's pediatrician's office until noon so we hoped to get the results to him before he left.

All in all the x-ray was a good experience. They had Sam in this contraption that kept her still and Brent held her arms up over her head during the x-rays (there were three). Then we asked when we could get the results and not even ten minutes later we were talking to the doctor at the pediatrician's office and we was reviewing the results with me! Bronchial pneumonia was the diagnosis. While that sounds terrible, the good news is that the treatment isn't any different from what we're already doing: a round of antibiotics! So the only thing different is the name of her condition.

She's still tired, but she's more playful and smile-y than she has been this last week. She seems to be sleeping better, too. She hasn't thrown up since Thursday morning and we are quite glad about that! She is such a trooper to have endured this illness so well. Here's a picture of her sleeping after we got home from her chest x-ray. She's just adorable.

Update

So much for getting better! She developed a fever and her coughing got worse. We finally took her to the doctor on Monday where she was diagnosed with a sinus infection. She had a fever of 103! Oh, our poor baby. So we started her on antibiotics Monday evening. She acted somewhat better on Tuesday, but she still had the fever. Then at 6:00 am this morning I woke up to her just screaming at the top of her lungs. I ran into her room and picked her up to comfort her and discovered that she had thrown up. Yuck for her. She did not agree with the experience at all.

I gave her some Tylenol and a bottle and rocked her back to sleep. She didn't wake up again until just before noon. She was given the antibiotic and Tylenol which she promptly threw up. I got home and called the doctor's office and they suggested switching antibiotics since she was having a reaction to this one. I took her over to the office with me to pick up the sample and she threw up again, all over the car. I brought her home, gave her "breakfast."

Then Brent got home. He took over while I went to class. She slept almost the whole time I was gone. She finally took the new medicine and doesn't seem to have had any adverse reactions to it. She ate dinner and played like crazy with all the tupperware and metal bowls. Then she finally went to sleep. I hope it's a good night's sleep and she doesn't wake up with a fever.

So the long and the short of it is, basically, that it pains me to see her so miserable. What an ordeal for such a little body! I hope she gets better quickly. There have been glimpses of her old self where she's clapped her hands and babbled a lot. She had mellowed out so much that it was hard to see her personality. I'm glad it's resurfacing now. I need to get more batteries for the camera, hence the lack of new pictures yet again. But once we get Sam's face permanently snot free, we'll take some more.