Ellie Update and More

Ellie update

Ellie seems to be doing really well recovering from the UTI.  This is interesting because on Friday, after spending the week on one antibiotic, the hospital called to tell me that the results of her cultures came back and she has ESBL E. Coli (which is an antibiotic resistant strand).  The nurse told me they were going to switch her to a different antibiotic with hopes of “tricking the bacteria”.  I told her that I thought the antibiotic actually was working because my daughter, who has only slept through the night 1 night previous in her entire night, had slept through the night the past 2 nights.  She told me it was possible that the antibiotic was knocking down the infection enough to help her to feel better but that it wouldn’t be enough to get rid of the infection.  I said, “Okay, well hopefully this new antibiotic will be easier on her stomach because the current antibiotic is giving her diarrhea”.  But the nurse said, “Not likely, this new antibiotic might make it worse”.  Oh super.  So all this talk about a “new antibiotic that would trick the bacteria” made me think we were talking about some new medication that I’d never heard of before.  Which is why I was surprised when I went to pick up the prescription to find that it was Augmentin, a medication I had been on for ear infections numerous times as a kid.

I have no idea if it has anything to do with the medication or the infection or if it’s just coincidence but last night and the night before she didn’t sleep well and she was majorly fussy during the day.  Which is normal for Ellie, but we had been really hoping that she was feeling better and that’s why she had slept through the night two nights in a row.  Her diarrhea has remained about the same…. Maybe slightly worse.  Poor thing has had diarrhea now for almost a week thanks to the antibiotics.  Thankfully her bum is holding up okay so far.  One more week to go with the antibiotics and then we follow-up with her pediatrician who unfortunately is going to catheterize her again to check to be sure the infection is gone.  Praying the infection will be gone by then! 

I can't believe that my girls have each only had 1 infection in their lives and both have had antibiotic resistant strains (Payton had MRSA in her middle ear this summer)!  It's super scary how many of these antibiotic resistant infections are out there.  Yeah my girls are young and healthy and will likely get over the infection anyway but what about those that aren't so young..... ?  And then it makes you think about how we are getting closer and closer to a point in time when antibiotics just aren't going to be affective in the majority of cases.  I mean, here we are 2 for 2 on getting an antibiotic resistant strain!  

Other Ellie Updates

Starting this month Ellie has really started to pull herself up to a stand all the time.  She still doesn't walk around while holding onto things and still isn't able to stand unassisted but having the desire to play in the standing position is huge for her.  She has also decided that she likes to "walk" when we hold her up, as opposed to how she used to just lift up her legs and make us carry her instead. 

Ellie recently outgrew her size 3 shoes so we got her a new pair of size 4 shoes.  They are slightly big on her but it doesn't matter too much since we just use them to protect her feet when she bum scoots around outside (mostly at the play ground).  We got her news shoes on the day she came down sick and had to be taken to the ER.  She screamed her head off in the shoe store and acted like she might vomit but we didn't realize at the time that anything was seriously wrong..... we just figured it was because she was teething or had a stomach issue.  Poor thing!  I feel so bad now that she had been in pain from a UTI and we didn't even realize it.  

Looking back on January so far......

New Years Day

If you want to know the worst time to visit a trail of lights, it's after Christmas is already passed.  The evening of New Years Day we decided to head to the Moody Gardens Trail of Lights one last time.  We were surprised at how many people were also there since Christmas lights after Christmas doesn’t seem like it would be such a popular thing to do.  I guess we were wrong.  Some of the lights were broken, the sound track kept skipping….. it was obvious they were ready to shut the thing down until next year.  Although the thrill of seeing the lights and anticipating the arrival of Christmas was over, since we get to go through the trail of lights free of charge with our Moody Gardens' passes, we were glad we went one last time.  Ellie kept pointing at all the lights and seemed pretty amazed.  Plus Payton had fun too.  I have a feeling this new year with a 3 year old and a 1 year old is going to be a really fun time!

Miniature Golf

On Saturday, January 11, we were trying to think of something fun to do since it was a beautiful day outside and so we decided to take Payton to play miniature golf for the first time.  We have a great miniature golf place on Seawall, overlooking the Gulf.  Payton did really well for it being her first time to play and also for being just 3.  She needed some help hitting the ball a good distance but she was good at putting the ball into the hole after that.  We let her cheat a bit but in the end she ended up tying with me for 1st place.  Charles tied with himself for 2nd place. ;)

Other January happenings

For a total of about 2 days, Ellie would start to crawl using a real crawl but after going a couple of feet across the floor she would revert back to her usual bum scoot/one-legged crawl.  But now it seems she has gone back to just scooting to get around.

One Saturday we went hiking on a west end birding trail.  We have thankfully been having some nicer, warmer weather lately.

That's about all I've got right now!  Ellie will turn 14 months old this Wednesday but I might wait to update on what she's up to at 14 months until after her pediatrician appointment next week.  We shall see.  Hope everyone is having a good start to 2014!