Another Day, Another Doctor

Although I expected things to be "interesting" in the past couple weeks, we've definitely had some unexpected things happen, mostly involving doctors. What I like about Kaiser is that when you leave the hospital with a newborn you are scheduled for an appointment at the Newborn Club. At that appointment, they weigh the baby and then you feed the baby and they weigh the baby again. Alex lost more weight than they would have liked while in the hospital so he had a couple of followups in the Newborn Club. He also had followup blood work since he had a little big of jaundice in the hospital. The blood work came back clear but one of the nurses noticed that Alex was tongue tied. I had heard of it before but didn't know what it was so for those who might not know, being tongue tied means that the little piece of skin that holds your tongue in your mouth goes too far along the bottom of your tongue and restricts its movement. Essentially, Alex couldn't stick his tongue out. This was making it difficult to eat and could lead to speech problems later in life. Luckily it is pretty easy to fix when you are a week old. I will spare you the details but at our last trip to the Newborn Club left Alex able to stick out his tongue and he is now eating much better. That was last Friday. We have his first appointment with the pediatrician tomorrow so we will know how his weight gain is going then.

On Sunday, Jacob came down with a fever. It lasted until Monday morning and he had to stay home from daycare. No other symptoms really, except for general I'm-not-feeling-good grumpiness. The fever went away and the grumpiness got better, though not back to his normal self. He went to daycare this morning but not for long before we got the phone call to come pick him up...he has a rash on his feet and mouth. Turns out this is textbook hand, foot, and mouth disease. Not usually serious and it will clear up on its own. We went directly from daycare to the pediatrician (in fact, the same pediatrician we will see tomorrow for Alex) and got a confirmation. As it turns out, Jacob was not the only kid in his class sent home today with the same symptoms. He's still not 100% and right now we are thinking he'll likely stay home from daycare until Monday. Luckily, even though it is contagious it is rare for infants to get it and also for adults so HOPEFULLY the rest of us will make it through unscathed. The most annoying part: at the pediatrician, we were sent to a back entrance for kids with rashes - so they can be taken straight to a room and not sit in the lobby infecting other kids. But instead of taking us to a room we were led directly to the lobby to check in and then had to wait in the lobby with all of the other kids. Oh well.