Who knew a doctors appointment could make me so happy??

Ok, now for those of you who DON'T know the story of our past year, that title probably sounds just a little on the odd side. No worries, I'll explain. At schnitzel's 9 month well-baby appointment, his pediatrician was a little concerned that he wasn't gaining weight as quickly as she expected him to and advised me to "add more fat" to his diet in the form of cheese, yogurt, butter, etc. No problem, I did just that. Well, at his one year appointment, things kind of "hit the fan" as it were. He had only gained 10 oz since his 9 month visit and hadn't grown in length at all! He only weighed 15lb 15oz and was still 27 1/2 inches long. For my fellow mothers out there, you know that's not good and for the non-mothers, let's just say he had fallen off the bottom of the growth chart and you can imagine that's not exactly what doctors are hoping for!

So, blood tests were ordered and luckily they all came back normal except for slightly elevated eosonophils which normally indicate that some kind of allergic reaction is occurring. Since Brad and I both have seasonal allergies, this wasn't all that suprising.

At the same time, I had started giving him whole milk because that's what everyone says you're supposed to do when your kiddo turns one (and we all know what a rule-follower I am!) Well, very quickly he went from being an easy-going child who slept like a dream to a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde impersonator with incredibly erratic sleep. I almost lost my mind trying to figure out where all of THAT was coming from, but thought that maybe it was just that whole toddler thing coming into play.

Fast forward one month. One Friday night, I made the schnitz some creamed corn with sour cream for dinner. He ate two bites and wouldn't touch the rest of it. The next morning he woke up with some rash around his mouth and I just figured his skin must have been sensitive to something he'd gotten on it. I left shortly after that to drive to Scottsbluff (NE) for my grandfather's memorial service and didn't get home until around 9 that night. Brad told me at that point that Rusty's rash had been spreading throughout the day. The next morning, he had hives over most of his body and we took him straight to Urgent Care. The doctor there said that it looked like an allergic reaction, told us to give him Benadryl immediately and referred us to a pediatric allergist.

A week, a consultation with the allergist and one blood draw later, we received a call letting us know that he had come back positive as being allergic to wheat, eggs and dairy (so much for trying to get him to gain weight with the dairy products, huh?). Ok, a little on the shocking side, but a relief in an odd kind of way because at least now we knew what the problem was and could actually begin addressing it. Surely now life could calm down a bit, right?

Nope.

About two weeks later, Rusty started developing bruises all over his body for seemingly no reason. Now granted, kids that age get some bruises, it comes with that whole "discovery" phase, but this was going beyond the pale. Honestly, he looked like he was being beaten on a regular basis! So, back to the doctor. She took one look at him and got really concerned. This is definitely an argument for having a good relationship with your pediatrician because her first thought was not to blame me or Brad! In fact, I heard her on the phone with the specialist from the Childrens Hospital actually having to assure them that this wasn't an abuse case. Talk about a conversation I never thought would be connected to me!

Now our pediatrician's office is located at a hospital and so they finally decided to send him down to the lab to have some blood drawn and find out what was going on. A few hours later the results came in: extremely low blood platelet count. My heart stopped. And it didn't help when I went online and started seeing all of the possible causes of low blood platelets that included leukemia! We went back into the pediatrician's and were told that he had developed something called "idiopathic thrombocytopenia". In my opinion, there should be a rule that your child should never develop anything that hard to pronounce! Apparently, his immune system had been so hammered by the food allergies that he had contracted a virus that was destroying his platelets. His numbers were down to about 3,000 and they're supposed to be at least 30,000. They started him on steroids and said that it could take anywhere from 1-6 months for his levels to go back to normal. In the meantime, he had to have his blood drawn once a week to check on him. A LOT of fun, as you can imagine. Fortunately, he was actually back to normal within 2 weeks...praise GOD!

This gives you just a bit of an idea of the issues that we have been dealing with this year. Not to mention the fact that since the first allergy diagnosis he has also developed allergy issues with soy and beef. It's taken most of it to get a handle on what to feed him and how to protect him from getting food that he's not supposed to eat. Plus, the stress of knowing how much "catching up" he has had to do both in weight and height. I mean, the rapid growth generally happens when they're babies and a lot more stationary not while toddlers and in perpetual motion, you know what I mean?

Which brings me to the reason for my happiness today. Never mind the fact that this 2 year appointment involved the last vaccination until he's 5 which is a reason to be happy in and of itself! The biggest contributor to my happiness has to do with the measurements that they took!Take a look:

1 yr

Weight: 15lb 15oz

Length: 27 1/4"

2 yr

Weight: 22lb 4oz

Length: 34"

Woohoo!!! Six 1/2 pounds and 6 3/4 inches in basically 11 months...he's on the charts!! This may sound ridiculous, but I can't even begin to explain what a relief it is to go in for a well-baby check and have a well-baby! I'm SO looking forward to what I hope are now going to be years filled with good health and just the occasional "normal" childhood illnessess that are pronounceable and don't require specialists! I wouldn't wish stomach bugs or ear infections on my child for the world, but in comparison....they seem pretty manageable:-)

Thanks for bearing with me through this very long explanation for my overwhelming feelings of relief and happiness today. As a reward, here's a rather entertaining series of pictures taken last night when we were testing him to fill out his development questionnaire for today's appointment. (FYI: this particular task was to stack 7 blocks...as you can see, I was pretty comfortable checking this one off the list;-)

One more....

Yay...14 blocks...so cool!!!:-)