Archive for December, 2005

Roseola Infantum

Published by Daphne on Dec 22, 2005 in Firsts, Illness and Jubilee. Closed

Taken from What to Expect the First Year
Symptoms in order of appearance:
1. Irritability; loss of appetite; fever (102º - 105º). Yes; yes; yes. Sometimes: Runny nose; swollen glands; convulsions. Sometimes; no; no.
2. On 3rd or 4th day: Fever drops and baby seems better. Yes.
3. Faint pink spots that turn white upon pressure on body, neck, upper arms, and sometimes, face and legs. In some cases, there may be no rash. Yes, can’t tell. No.

I’d heard and read about roseola, but I hadn’t seen a rash, so I was still thinking Jubilee has a weird virus. But then this morning…

Jubilee’s face was kind splotchy red this morning, but I hoped it was from crying, a runny nose and irritatability, so just put some Cetaphil on her face. When I changed her diaper, I checked for a rash, but did not see one. Nope, no roseola, it’s just a virus.

In the late morning, Jubilee stopped her nursing session by screaming. I took her to the bathroom and saw tiny dots all over her body! I hoped maybe it was from leaning against me during nursing, but my hope was mostly because I didn’t want to panic. The dots were not faint and it wasn’t bumpy, like hives. It was only on her front and part of her thighs, and her face was still red. So I kept her clothes off for a little bit to see if the dots would go away. They didn’t seem as prominent, but they hadn’t disappeared.

When the doctor called and I explained her symptoms, she asked me to press the dots to see if they changed color. I said no, but it was difficult to tell because there wasn’t much light. Regardless, Dr. Fazilot declared Jubilee has roseola! So, we have a name to the illness. It’s a Human Herpes Virus 6 (HHV 6) strain, if that means anything to you.

To add some humor to the sickness, I’m considering calling it Roseoli, the Pasta Virus. (=

Jubilee’s cold

Published by Daphne on Dec 21, 2005 in Firsts, Illness and Jubilee. Closed

Jubilee’s cold lasted a little longer than the average 5 days. But she was perky and happy and doing all her normal stuff, so I wasn’t worried about her congestion. She was fine by Friday. Then came Saturday. Auntie Andrea was in town and we had a fabulous weekend planned: a movie night, courtesy of Auntie Andrea’s offer to baby-sit, Jubilee’s first chance to attend a birthday party with a friend at Little Gym, and Christmas caroling. All of those fun plans went down the drain and were permanently washed away by Sunday’s deluge.

Jubilee had a high fever all weekend. A couple times it dropped down and she was perky, but for most of it, she was sluggish girl who didn’t like to move and preferred to be held more than to play. She didn’t even want to eat! The fever continued on Monday, so I took her to the doctor, but her ears, tummy, and throat were fine. So the doctor chocked it up as viral and said to wait it out.

On Tuesday, the fever was gone, but Jubilee got cranky. Not all the time, but when she woke up, she was screaming like a newborn and it was somewhat scary. Our doctor wanted to take precautions, so she had us take Jubilee to the lab to get a blood and urine sample. If you thought it was difficult to pee into a cup, try being a baby. We had to attatch an adhesive bag onto Jubilee and wait for her to go #1. That bag did not look comfortable. Then we waited at the doctor’s office for the results. Again, her ears, tummy, and throat were fine, and eventually the lab results came back and everything was fine; no urinary tract infection, or anything else.

So while it was an inconvenience to get all this work done, we’re thankful for Dr. Fazilot, (Dr. Troiano is on vacation), who cares so much for our baby.

Jubilee is still intermittently cranky, but she’s eating solids again, crawling, and laughing. She’s starting to sound congested again, so I think the virus is running its course.

cLiMbInG!

Published by Daphne on Dec 8, 2005 in Asides and Firsts. Closed

Jubilee just climbed her first “step.” I had my back to her and then heard a clomp clomp clomp. I looked at her and she was crawling across an underbed storage bin. I pulled her down and watched her again. Sure enough, she showed me how she cann climb the bin. She also showed me how she can climb down! The bin isn’t that high and the ground is carpeted, but that doesn’t ease my nerves for when she finds real stairs.

Published by Daphne on Dec 8, 2005 in Asides, Illness and Jubilee. Closed

Jubilee woke up with a snotty nose and hoarse throat. Poor baby sounds like she’s lost her voice! Her fever is gone, so that’s good. The doctor said it’s a normal cold and will probably last until Monday. Despite the sickness, my little girl is still her perky extroverted self!

100.5?Ǭ?F

Published by Daphne on Dec 7, 2005 in Firsts and Jubilee. Closed

Jubilee has a runny nose and is coughing. She’d been like this a week ago, so I figured another cold had come along. But we noticed that she was warm, so we decided to take her temperature. We realized tonight that we had never officially taken her temperature, as armpit is an inaccurate measure. Years from now, Jubilee will probably be very embarassed that we blogged this, but we’re proud to say that we finally took her temperature rectally! (Hey, at least we didn’t take a picture of it and post it!)

Jubilee’s temeprature is 100.5, about a degree above normal. Poor baby! And here’s some context on how our daughter is growing up: if she was a newborn, we would’ve had to call the doctor immediately.

Published by Daphne on Dec 3, 2005 in Asides. Closed

Tonight was David’s company party. We decided to drop Jubilee off at the church nursery (yes, there’s church going on!) and we asked our friends Alice and Wally to take Jubilee home. They only live a mile away from us so it was quite convenient. Jubilee has been ?ɬºber fussy at night, so I was very nervous about whether or not this would work out.

The results? We didn’t get a call from our friend until 10:20pm! She said it was all righty; she didn’t get too fussy. When the nursery closed Rita brought her to our small group until Alice and Wally were ready to leave. According to Alice, she was doing well until people started leaving. I guess our little social butterfly was sad to see people leaving. Jubilee also kept looking around…probably for us!

When we arrived at Alice and Wally’s house, Jubilee was awake! One of Alice and Wally’s daughters was quietly reading a book next to Jubilee, keeping her company. What agreat older sister she is becoming!

We had a great evening! Now I need to go to bed, hoping she won’t wake up in the middle of the night. Tomorrow morning is the Women’s Prayer Meeting, so it would be nice if I’m fully rested for the event.

Iron Checkup

Published by Daphne on Dec 2, 2005 in Asides. Closed

At Jubilee’s 9 month checkup, her iron was a little low. I don’t know the unit of measurement for iron level, but anyway…she was at .10 and .11 was the minimum. So we’ve been giving her iron supplement, which let me tell you, smells exacly like an iron pipe. At her checkup yesterday, Jubilee’s iron was at .34! Yay! She still needs to take it for a couple more months, but she’s gotten used to it now.

And even better, she now weighs 15 pounds, 4 1/4 ounces! Dr. Troiano said she is moving closer to the 5th percentile in weight, heehee! A month ago, Dr. Troiano said we were “being generous” at saying she was in the 3rd percentile.