Not Leukemia... What?!?!

I got a call from the Bountiful Instacare today, the same one that I took Ashton to on Thursday. I guess they sent his blood to another lab for further analysis. It came back with a platelet count of only 35... no I'm not really sure what that means in the whole scheme of things, but they said that is LOW and BAD and DANGEROUS. They said I was to take him immediately to the ER at Primary Children's... GREAT. So I called my mom and she met me at the daycare. We road up to the hospital together and checked in. The doctor said she wanted to run a whole bunch of tests and just rule things out. Okay...sure... whatever you want. So they poked Ashton (again) and extracted 3 things of blood to test and then they hooked him up with an IV. They came to the conclusion that the rash he's got is really patiki eye. I guess that is when the blood vessels are breaking underneath the skin. After about 3 hours of waiting for all of the tests to come back the doctor finally came in with the news. She said that his platelets are still low, not as low, but low. And his white count is low. The good news is that he doesn't have Leukemia. (At this point I nearly fell over... LEUKEMIA??? Are you SERIOUS???). We have to go back to the hospital in a week to re-check his blood and make sure that with the virus going away that his blood levels come back up. So cross your fingers. We're feeling really blessed right now that it turned out as well as it did. Now if we could just get him healthy, that would be much better!!

Sick... again...

I believe I've posted about Bilateral Otitis before... well, it's back and this time it's brought it's friend Infected Throat. Aren't we lucky?? (Can you hear the sarcasm oozing from my tone???)

I got a call at work on Monday from Ashton's day care: "Hi, Marianne. Well, 1st of all, Ashton has a really high fever and 2nd Ashton has a really bad rash. You need to come get him." Sure enough, when I got there he was burning up and did indeed have a rash. **The rash I wasn't so worried about since Ashton's allergic to milk and may or may not have had a taste of ice cream the day prior (shhhh....).** But the fever really had me worried. When Ashton got sick with the metapheumovirus last month, it all started with a high fever. So I took him home and gave him Tylenol and he seemed to be fine... hmmm, maybe he's teething?? I'm not so sure. So Tuesday I brought him to work with me and my mom (LOVE HER!!) came and picked him up for the day. She said he got another fever and gave him some Motrin. By the time I got there after work he was burning up again so I took him to the local instacare. His fever was at 104. YIKES!! Then they hooked him up to the machine that checks his oxygen and blood pressure. His oxygen kept going from 88-95 (which is OK, not great...). I started to freak. Seriously?!?! We were just in the hospital. I don't want to go back!! So then they check his lungs, they sounded good. I started to feel a little bit relieved. They then check his ears, "Oh boy" the doctor says, "This one is pretty badly infected, let's check the other one. Oh man, this one is really bad too." Then the doctor wants to check his throat. "Oh wow little man, look at all that puss growing on your tonsils, no wonder you're not a happy guy." Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself... 2 ear infections?? Again?? This has to be like 10th infections he's had this winter! The doctor says he's concerned about the height of Ashton's fever and wants to do some blood tests. He says he'll send the nurses in. After being held down by myself and another nurse and a 3rd nurse trying to find a vein for about 20 minutes (and poking him all over the place) they finally get what they need. Ashton is now drenched in sweat from trying to escape the needles. A few minutes later the doctor comes back and says that the blood test came back fine (phew!!) but he'll need to be on antibiotics for 10 days to treat his ears and throat. I can deal with that. Much better than going back to the hospital!

Later that night I called my dad (Doctor Dad, MD) and relayed our nights events. He said he's talk to a specialist at the hospital today about Ashton's condition and hopefully they can figure something out... tubes perhaps? I don't know. But something needs to happen. His poor little ears can't take any more of this infection business.

Spring Break and Easter Weekend

Well, Spring break didn't quite turn out like I had planned... a few months ago we thought we'd take a vacation since Justin had a week off of school. You know, something short and sweet and AWESOME like Disneyland!! But then Ashton got sick and spent our "vacation" in the hospital... so we made due with what time we had. I am lucky enough to work with a guy who's wife works at Park City Mountain Resort... his family doesn't ski (CRAZY I KNOW), so she gets all of these free passes just for working there and gives me several each year. So we got to go skiing for free on Friday and Saturday. That resort is my favorite by far. It is HUGE and super nice, but the best part is the Baja Cantina. This is the most AWESOME Mexican restaurant (aside from El Torito... which we don't have here in Utah... sad (**SIGH**)). It is so much fun to be able to ski and then go to a nice sit down restaurant, then go back and ski some more. We also got to ski with my little brother Sam. Sam is an AMAZING skier. He is sponsored and wins all types of awards for the tricks and jumps he can do on his skis. It was really just awe inspiring. It was really exciting for Justin to be able to see his uncle doing what he does best and I'm sure he had so much pride seeing people stop to watch Sam and go "ooohhh ahhhh wowwww"..

Justin and I woke up early on Easter morning to make eggs and pancakes. I did the pancakes and he did the eggs. He was so excited to help. After church we stayed up at my moms and had dinner with my family and grandparents and my aunt Barb and her kids. Justin and Ashton had their egg hunt. Justin was almost beating the door down as soon as he saw all of the candy outside. Ashton was so cute!! As soon as he saw Justin picking up all of the candy he got right into it and started throwing candy in his own bag.

So all in all it was an awesome weekend, not Disneyland... but sometimes family time is even better :)

Cute Nephews

There should be a rule against family moving far away. Who can I talk to about this? Seriously! My newest nephew Henry has new pictures and he's just so stinkin cute! I just want to squish his little cheeks but I CAN'T because he's so far away. I miss my little Andersen (A- Dog, not to be confused with J-Dog (Justin)). I found a baby picture of Andersen and think it is SO adorable how much these two little guys look alike... See for yourself... don't pass out from shock over the cuteness!!

Andersen













and

Henry

Ticket To Ride

So my family and I have discovered the most FUN board game!! (***Side note*** They may have discovered it WAAAAYYYY before I did, but I'm taking some credit none the less!!). So this game is all about building train routes around a country or through countries and trying not to get blocked along the way by the people you're playing with. It is seriously so fun!! I guess there are are all sorts of different versions of the game. We usually play the Europe game, but today my mom and dad and I played the Switzerland one. I lost. DANG IT!! I still had a blast though. So if anyone is looking for a fun and somewhat mentally challenging game, go get it!!