I got o a phone call this morning from Tiffany saying she was on her way to take Kylie to the doctor and asking if I could meet them there. I told her I could most likely move some things around on my schedule and meet them at the office, and then I asked why they were going. She said that yesterday Kylie was supposed to have a hot lunch at school but when she came home she told Mommy that she didn’t eat. When asked why she didn’t eat Kylie said that the chicken fingers were to hot. Mommy told her she could have blew on them to cool them down and Kylie said she decided to just eat her carrots. Everything seemed fine and they went about their day, later that evening Mommy had plans to go out to a hockey game and while she was gone Mimi had asked Kylie how her day at school was. Kylie told her about her day and when she told Mimi she didn’t eat her lunch and Mimi asked why she was given the same response of the chicken fingers being to hot. However this time, when Mimi said she could have blown on them, Kylie responded with a slightly more expanded answer that seemed rather odd, and so Mimi told Mommy about it when she came home. It turns out that not only were the chicken nuggets hot but Kylie said she couldn’t blow on them because her “heart was beating very fast and was hurting her chest and back” so she just ate her carrots. When Mommy asked Kylie about it this morning Kylie said the same thing and that it was to hard for her to blow on them so she just ate her carrots. She said she told the “lunch teacher” as well, but didn’t say what that teacher said and nothing was said to Tiffany about it when she picked Kylie up. So Tiffany called the doctor and explained the situation to them and they said to bring her in right away because they wanted to check on her. When I met them up at the doctor’s office Kylie seemed perfectly fine, as usual, but I was still interested in what the outcome of this would be. The exam went smoothly and all seems to be well, but the doctor said there still could be an issue. He said it could be something as simple as she pulled a muscle in her chest from coughing and that is why her chest and back hurt and she relates it to her heart because it is on that side, or she could have a case of costochondritis which Mommy also has. Alternatively, he said it is possible that she had an episode of Supraventricular Tachycardia, which apparently is something that children often flip in and out of, and “means that from time to time your heart beats very fast for a reason other than exercise, high fever, or stress.” It is really difficult to diagnose in children Kylie’s age due to their inherent lack of fully understanding their bodies yet and also the limitations of their vocabulary (though Kylie’s is extensive) and how they express themselves. He said it is nothing to worry about seeing as this is the first time she has ever mentioned anything like this, but if she does mention it further that we should make note of it and depending on the frequency we may do some testing at a later date. Either way she had a clean bill of health for today’s exam; weighing in at 52 pounds and having a slight fever (99.7), but her heart sounded perfect and her lungs were clear; additionally there were no signs of ear infections and surprisingly no strep.

Instead of going to soccer this morning we had the joy of going to the doctors. Last night Kylie was seeing and at one point she turned to face Mommy just as she opened wide to sing “la” when Mommy thought she saw something odd. She asked Kylie to come closer and to open her mouth wide and say “ah” so she could look at her throat, and when she did she got one heck of a shock. Kylie’s throat was red and her tonsils were so swollen that they were almost touching her uvula. As is typical Kylie was not acting sick at all and had Mommy not noticed her throat while she was singing, we most likely would not have known anything was wrong. So first thing this morning we made an appointment to go and see the doctor. When we got there Kylie was still acting perfectly normal, bouncing around and playing and laughing as usual, and this continued on into the exam room. They performed all the normal checking; she weighed in at 48.5 lbs and her temperature was 98.8. The doctor looked into her ears (which showed no sign of infection) and also looked at her throat. He said that her throat is red and her tonsils are slightly swollen, but the strep test they performed came back negative, though they will know better by Monday morning if the full test grows any cultures. At this point he suspects that Kylie simply has a viral sore throat and that it will go away on its own, and that as of now we should simple treat her symptoms and make sure she drinks plenty of fluids. I guess we will just need to wait and see what the next few days bring.

Got a phone call from Tiffany last night saying she wanted to take Kylie to the doctor today because she thinks she has pink eye; so that’s what we did today. Kylie’s eyes have been slightly red and watery for a day or two now, but we thought it was allergies (and it may still be, more on that in a minute), especially since both Mommy and Mimi have spring allergies and Kylie was just outside the other day for soccer. The allergy medicine had been helping Kylie sleep and seemed to be taming the discharge from her eyes and curbing her morning coughing, so we went with it. However, last night, Mommy noticed that the discharge from Kylie’s right eye had gone from clear to murky greenish color and her eye was redder than normal; hence the decision to go to the doctor today. When Kylie woke this morning her eye was pretty much crusted shut from the odd greenish discharge. This is usually a key sign that something is wrong with Kylie, ever since she was a baby her eyes have always been the key to determining when she was sick or not feeling well. As an infant she she had badly blocked tear ducts, and so now when her eyes get that odd green discharge we know something is typically wrong; it could be a head cold, an ear infection, even allergies, but it’s likely something. So the doctor checked her out today and at the time of her checkup she weighed 49.5 pounds and had no fever, her eyes, of course, were clear; although you could tell that the right one had previously been discharging. This is when the doctor told us that they typically treat conjunctivitis a little more aggressively than any other type of infection, and by that he means that when it comes to the eye and situations like this they will almost always prescribe some form of eye drop medication without a positive test for the infection. The reason being is that the only way to test is to swab the eye and send it off to the lab to see if any cultures grow, the process takes 3 days; so as opposed to waiting they choose to treat. So it is entirely possible that Kylie, in fact, does not have pink eye; but tonight she took her first drops with out issue. Actually she seems to enjoy it and thinks that it is funny when I drop them in.

I got a phone call at work today from Tiffany to tell me that she was having Mimi take Kylie to the doctor today because when Kylie got up this morning she had a very bad, deep cough (to the point that Kylie started to cry) and both Mommy and Mimi were afraid that it might be croup. They were able to get an early appointment so I made arrangements to leave work and go to the appointment seeing as the doctor’s office is right down the road from my office.  When I arrived at the office Kylie seemed like she was feeling fine, but then again that is extremely deceptive with Kylie because unless she is really sick she is normally her chipper self. Then as we were sitting in the waiting room Kylie had a small bout of coughing, and from what I heard I had a pretty good feeling that she just had a small cold. When we got called into the Doctor’s examining room Kylie weighed in at 47.5 pounds; when they took her temperature it was 98.7. The doctor looked Kylie over and said that her ears looked good (which is always good news considering her past record with ear infections and my record with them when I was a kid) and that her throat was a little pink (but nothing to treat) and that her lungs sound clear. After all the examinations the doctor said that she had a simple cold and the reason her cough sounded so bad in the morning was due to nasal draining over night and that perhaps a humidifier might help prevent such hard coughing in the morning. Additionally some decongestant before bed might also help to ensure that Kylie sleeps well and wont have such a rough cough in the morning. Here’s to hoping that she feels better tomorrow morning.