5 months!

Owen is nearly 5 months old! Today we went to have some family portraits taken and it was a blast. It was a little tough to get Owen to smile for the camera, but at least he wasn't crying or throwing a tantrum. The prints will be ready in a few days, so here's a little preview.

Rice Cereal

I bought a video camera before Owen was born. A nice one. I decided to splurge on the 1080p Canon since I knew that I'd have it for a long time and wanted to be sure that the quality was as good as possible.

Since then I've been pretty good at taking videos (not great, but good) but horrible at posting them (I've posted a total of 0). Today I present my first video, a compilation of the first couple attempts of Owen eating rice cereal. To be truthful, they're mostly being posted for the grandparents because I don't picture many other people sitting down for 7 minutes to watch Bridget and Owen battle over a rice and formula mixture. I hope to continue the trend and get better about posting new videos more often. Enjoy!

The Flu and The Failure of Urgent Care

On Sunday I got sick. It started pretty tame. I could tell that I had a slight fever but it was only registering around 100 degrees, nothing major. I was also starting to get a bit achey and had almost no energy to go and cut the grass (I cut it anyway and now I'm glad that I did since it would have looked like a jungle right now otherwise.)

Not a good idea

I took some Tylenol and felt good as soon as the fever broke. Fortunately (I know now), Bridget allowed me to rest and since I was having some flu like symptoms I stayed away from Owen as much as possible on Sunday. By Sunday night I still wasn't feeling good so I called in sick for work on Monday so I could get more rest, hoping this would be a quick thing like the multiple colds I've had since Owen has started daycare.

Monday came and I wasn't getting any better. Bridget "recommended" that I go and see a doctor. I imagine that Bridget and I are like a lot of people in our age range in that we don't have a Primary Care Physician (PCP). Before Owen (and more importantly, daycare) came along Bridget and I hadn't been sick for years. To try and see a doctor right away I decided to go to Florida Hospital Centra Care, their urgent care facilities. Little did I know at the time that this would end up being a very bad decision.

"Urgent" Care = All Around FAILURE

I got to Centra Care at 2PM and thought everything was going well when I was checked in quickly and saw the four people ahead of me get called into the exam area at pretty regular intervals. During my time in the waiting area there were a couple, additional people that came in after me and got called back almost right away, but I still figured everything was fine.

The Wait

At 3:05PM I was called back and put into an exam room. The nurse told me, "There are four other people ahead of you." While I didn't like hearing that it seemed like a good sign that it only took an hour to get into an exam room. Besides how long could it take for a doctor to see four people and get to me? 45 minutes? An hour? That's when it all went downhill.

For the next 90 minutes I sat in the exam room. No doctor. No nurse checking on me. Nothing. I don't want to think about what could have happened in that 90 minutes if I was really sick. I was there because I was sick, after all. Eventually, after 90 minutes of waiting, I went outside my room and asked the nurse what the status was. She said that they had received some emergency patients since I was brought back to the exam room, that they had been taken care of, but that there was still another person ahead of me. So not only did the nurses fail to check on me in an hour and a half they also didn't feel the need to practice any common courtesy and let me know why I was waiting so long. And my biggest issue of all (at this point):

I went to Urgent Care because on their website they state, "...an affordable alternative to a busy hospital emergency room. We offer fast, convenient, urgent, NON LIFE-THREATENING, care to adults and children." Why is my exam being delayed due to emergency patients showing up at urgent care? How is this fast, convenient, urgent, or any different than a wait at the emergency room? At least at the ER I have faith that I would see a competent doctor...

The "Exam"

Finally, at 5:00, three hours after I arrived, and two hours after getting into an exam room, the doctor entered. I told him my symptoms and he said that he was going to give me a flu test. Sounded like a good idea since I figured I had the flu based on the symptoms. I don't know if people know how these flu tests are done (they didn't have these 20 years ago when I last had the flu). They take this plastic swab and stick it up your nose so far that it makes your eyes water and you feel like it's trying to pop out through your ear. It's definitely not pleasant but not completely horrible. After a total of about 4 minutes with the doctor he leaves to get the flu test processed.

10 minutes later the doctor returns. He proceeds to tell me the flu test is negative (good news, right?) I ask him what I have if I don't have the flu. He calls it an "upper respiratory infection" which is basically a generic term for saying that I'm just sick. I specifically ask him if the flu test being negative means that I do not have to worry about having H1N1 (Swine) Flu. He tells me yes, that I do not have swine flu. I take that as good news and head home to try and let everything run its course.

But...It Is The Flu

Monday night I felt pretty good (Tylenol rocks) and still felt good Tuesday morning. Thinking that the doctor at urgent care was right, I figured I had turned a corner and so I went back to work. Everything was good until Tuesday afternoon. At that point, my fever came back and this time it wasn't just a 100 degree fever. By 5:00 on Tuesday my fever was at 102. And it stayed there. Finally, at 8:30 I took some Tylenol since the fever wasn't going anywhere. By 10:00, the fever broke and I was able to sleep.

When Bridget woke up to feed Owen at 5:30 Wednesday morning, I knew the fever was back. Checking my temperature it was already at 101.5. Calling in sick for work, I spent the morning in bed drinking a ton of water. But, again, the fever wasn't going anywhere. At noon, it was 102.5 and hadn't dropped all morning. Bridget and I decided it was time to find a doctor at a practice and try to see him.

I got really lucky when I called Dr. Shaw's office at Winter Park Family Health Center. I called right after someone cancelled their appointment so I was in seeing a doctor by 3:30 Wednesday afternoon. It took Dr. Shaw about 15-30 seconds to diagnose me with the flu. No flu test needed. And, yes, it probably was the Swine Flu. When I told him that I had a flu test on Monday that came back negative he proceeded to tell me that that flu test can't diagnose Swine Flu. What the?! I had asked the doctor at Florida Hospital Centra Care specifically about that and he was completely wrong.

Within 15 minutes of seeing Dr. Shaw I had a prescription for Tamiflu and am hopefully on the road to recovery. All I can hope for now is that I don't pass this to Bridget and Owen.

Lessons Learned

• Florida Hospital Centra Care was not any faster than the Florida Hospital ER. In fact, it was probably slower since Florida Hospital just opened a brand new ER a couple months ago and tout no wait at the ER.
• The doctor at Florida Hospital Centra Care misdiagnosed my illness, trusted an unreliable flu test over the symptoms that I had, and sent me home to a 4 1/2 month old who could be in real trouble if he gets the flu. I actually found articles from early August on several major websites (including U.S. News and World Report and New York Times) stating:

The [rapid flu] tests have a severe limitation: They may fail more than half the time to detect swine flu infections, according to newly published studies and to experts in medical testing.

The low sensitivity of the tests is becoming a concern to health authorities because a false negative reading might prompt a doctor not to prescribe antiflu drugs. (New York Times)

• If it feels like the flu and acts like the flu, it probably is the flu.
• Have a PCP that you trust even if you haven't been sick in a while. You'll appreciate it when you get sick like I did. Plus, you won't have to press your luck going to urgent care.

Catholics Part 2

Godmother Aunt Kristyn, Mama, Dad and Owen, Godfather Uncle Ted.














Baptism.














Fire! Owen and his godmother, Aunt Kristyn.














Owen and Mama before church.














Grandpa and Owen.














Owen loves Cookie Monster.














Owen and his cousin Colin.














Owen and Colin.

Catholics

Owen was baptised last Sunday, August 9. I can tell you the whole story in words - like how he stared-down the baptismal candle because he has a scary obsession with fire, or how he was doused with water three times and smiled the whole time, or how he looked so darn cute in his Strasburg jon jon, even though it was blue - but it would be better with pictures, wouldn't it? I agree. Too bad we are at the mercy of Bryan on this one. The family camera is some humongous, fancy thing with a footlong lens and too many gadgets for me to be able to figure out how to download photos onto the computer. We're lucky I can take a picture with the thing (my birthday is coming up; perhaps someone will be so thoughtful as to gift me with a nice little rectangular digital camera, maybe a pink one?). But I didn't want another day to pass without mentioning Owen's big day. We are so proud of him, and so thankful to all our families members who went out of their way to celebrate with us in Orlando.

A Good News/Bad News Post

So funny...now that Owen can regularly pull his feet up and grab them with his hands, he's started to fart a lot more! I guess rolling up into that position and putting pressure on your belly will do that.

So sad...I have a client who sends out weekly email "newsletters" to promote her company's scrapbooking products. She starts each newsletter with a personal story, usually a cute anecdote about what her little kids did that day or a business trip she took to a new city. Today she stated that she went to a funeral yesterday. Her friend and her friend's family (mom, dad, kid) were at the beach this weekend, and they blew a tire on the drive back home. Car flipped. Dad died. In a matter of moments, due to a freak accident, her friend is a widow and single mother. It was the saddest story I've heard in a long time, and it made me pause and give thanks for all that I have - my husband, my son and all of my extended family. I love you all.