Doctors' Visits

Yes, that is plural. We have been to the doctors' offices four times in the last week.

Father's Day weekend, Jared went on a biking trip, which I will have to post about later, so I had the girls all by myself. The night before he left, Taylor was in and out of bed probably 4-5 times, so the next day was really rough. We were all sleep-deprived, and she was really cranky. Then, on Sunday, I decided to be brave and took both girls to church by myself. By the time I got home from church, I wasn't feeling well at all. Normally I am starving after church, and I have to eat immediately, but I really didn't feel like cooking dinner. Instead, I grabbed a granola bar and just laid on the couch. Jared made it home later that night, and by that time, I was just aching all over. I thought maybe I had overdone it all weekend and had worn myself out, so I took my pain medicine for my broken bum and was in bed by 9:58pm. I'm usually a night owl, and it's a rare, rare occasion that I'm in bed by 10:00pm, so I obviously didn't feel well. The next morning, I expected to feel much better after a long night of sleep. Instead, I actually felt worse and even more achey. When I went to get in the shower, I noticed that my left breast was a little red. I had noticed during the night that it was a little tender, but that's not really unusual when you're breastfeeding. It was all starting to come together. I wasn't achey because of my tailbone and being tired. I bet I had mastitis. I looked it up online to see what all the symptoms are, and sure enough, everything I was noticing was listed. Luckily, I caught it before it got really bad. I still hadn't had my six week postpartum check up either because of my broken bum. Jared had taken that day off of work so we could celebrate a late Father's Day (I'll have to post about that later, too), so I figured it would be a good time to see if my OB-GYN could fit me in. I went in to the doctor later that afternoon, and I was right. I definitely had mastitis, so he put me on an antibiotic and told me to come back in a week. He said, ".. and you thought your weekly visits were over!" Oh, and he had to draw on me, too, to see how big the area of redness was. He said, "You just wanted me to draw on you." Yes, that's exactly it... haha

I feel like such a pill popper... haha I have never had to take so many medicines in my life! In the mornings, I take a prescription strength anti-inflammatory and the antibiotic. At night, I take the antibiotic, a prenatal vitamin, BCP's, and an occasional pain pill (which is not very often anymore; it has actually been a month since I fell now). These are all legally prescribed drugs, I swear ;-) Anyway, that's doctor visit #1.

Doctor visit #2 was the next day. Taylor had her last appointment with the plastic surgeon to follow up on her surgical site. He said he thought the scar looked well and that would could stop putting the scar ointment on it and just let it continue to heal on its own. He said he thought it would continue to lighten up and fade over time. He said that she shouldn't have any problems until she hits puberty, and hair probably wouldn't grow there (yeah, I didn't think it would), so she might want something cosmetic done at that time. I don't even want to know what they would do for that, but she's not going to have anything done because no one is going to see that, right??!! Glad that's all over with.

Doctor visit #3 (I suppose this could count as two visits actually) was on my birthday when Bella had to have the VCUG done to test for urinary reflux. A friend of mine had offered to watch Taylor, so I didn't have to worry about being stressed over her, too. I woke up that morning feeling very nervous about it and actually started crying after I got out of the shower. I just wasn't sure how they were going to do the test. When Taylor had her surgery, obviously they had to come and take her away from us. I was taking Bella to the hospital by myself, and I just didn't know how I would handle them taking her away from me and then having to just sit and wait by myself. Well, it turns out that the test was done in radiology, so I actually was able to stay in the room with her. She did so good! She's tough like her sister. Basically what they did was insert a catheter and then put dye into the catheter and took x-rays. When Taylor had her surgery, one of the employees brought her stickers and crayons which really put her in a better moon. I'm not really sure what her "title" is, but I think she just tries to make the kids as comfortable as she possibly can when they have procedures done. The same lady came and brought one of those little musical boxes that you would put on the side of a baby's crib. She laid it right by Bella's head, and Bella stayed very calm and was smiling and kicking her legs. Well, the first nurse tried to get the catheter in twice and couldn't get it. I know that sometimes putting a catheter in can be difficult anyway and can only imagine how difficult it must be to put in a tiny infant. It's not a very big target. Still, I was anxious to get it over with. Another nurse tried the third time and got it, but by this point, Bella was really ready for it to be over with, too. The radiologist was the one who did the actual x-rays, so once it was over, I didn't have to wait to find out the result; she told me right away that everything looked normal. Yay!! After that, I had to take the radiologist's report over to the urologist's office to meet with him. He said that because the test was negative it was likely that her UTI was just due to her urinary tract being contaminated from her stool. He wants us to go back in five months so they can test her urine and make sure everything still looks good.

Then, yesterday, I had my follow up on the mastitis. I figured he would just take a quick look, so I took both girls with me. Surprisingly, Taylor was a perfect angel most of the time while we were waiting. I got her to sit down and look at a magazine for a few minutes. She saw a picture of several babies together, and she started saying, "There's Kena... There's Noah..." haha It was Bella that started to get fussy because she was getting hungry. The receptionist let us go back to the kitchen area so I could feed her where Taylor took much advantage of the bowl of miniature Reese's cups and the water dispenser. I was still feeding Bella when the nurse took me back to the room. When she walked out, she didn't tell me to take off my shirt and leave me a little paper gown or anything. I thought surely he would have to check the area. So, when he came in, he asked how everything was. I told him everything was all better and the redness was completely gone. He said, "Didn't I mark on you?" I said yeah but it's gone. Did he seriously think that it would still be there after a week, especially when he only marked on me with a regular pen? haha So, he said, "Well, can I take a look?" That was a little awkward. I'm thinking "how exactly do I go about doing this?" He held Bella for me, and then I basically just stood there and lifted my shirt. I felt like I should have gotten some Mardi Gras beads after that.. haha Taylor decided to be her difficult self at the end. It took us about 15 minutes to get out of the office after we were already done because she kept going back and playing with the water dispenser and filling her cup and spilling it on the floor, and I was trying to clean up her mess to keep someone else from falling and breaking their tailbone. Then, while I was trying to wipe up the water, she was opening up Reese's cups and throwing the wrapper on the floor, so I had to make her pick up every little piece (because you know they have to tear it into a million pieces in order to get the wrapper off!). I think the office staff was very entertained.

Gratefully, even though we had lots of doctors' visits, everything turned out well, and we are all healthy. We're hoping to be able to stick around the house as much as possible this week though.