seizures, spiderbites, and storms...OH MY!

i'm warning you now that this will be a long post, because just about every possible bad thing that could happen happened today! i'll try to keep it interesting, but if you want to skip ahead, i've numbered the sections to help you find each story. i apologize in advance for typos, this has taken me forever to type out and i'm tired now!!

1. absence seizures

2. the spiderbite

3. the storm

4. CRAWLING!

5. coffee table incident

6.  cookie incident

7. finding the SPIDER!

#1 Absence Seizures-

Let's start at the beginning.... i made an appointment for noah to see JoAnn, our pediatrician at the indian clinic, for today. so we drove all the way up to Talihina at 7 am for our 9 am appointment.  basically i wanted JoAnn to look at what i thought might be excema on noah's little body and his twitching/spacey thing that he does: basically he will be playing and all of the sudden he will start shaking his head back and forth and get this spaced out look, like his eyes kinda stare off into space...it only lasts for a few seconds and is very sporadic, sometimes he might do it several times in a sitting, but then he might not do it for a day or so...(i'm gonna post the video on facebook later so you can see what i'm talking about). JoAnn confirmed the excema and prescribed some hydrocortisone cream and special baby lotion. then i showed her the video of noah's spasms...after going over all of the normal developmental things noah should be doing (he passes them all!!) she took my camera to show 2 other pediatricians in the office. when she came back she said she doesn't think that him shaking his head is the problem, but the spacey look he gets could be the sign of an "absence seizure." basically the baby looks absent. so she recommended that we get a "sleep/awake EEG" done just to be safe. since we don't live in oklahoma though the indian clinic can't cover the cost of it (since we would have to go to a specialist in tulsa) and we don't have any insurance. so, we called around and there isn't even a pediatric neurologist in fort smith. arkansas children's hospital referred us to a pedo. neurologist in rogers, i can't remember her name right now, and now we just have to get the appointment set up through our pediatrician's office. 

jamie wants to wait. he thinks it is something that noah will outgrow with time, which the dr. said was likely, and that we should just watch him for a while longer and see if he's still doing it in a few weeks. of course this annoys me, because i want to know now that nothing is wrong with my baby. i would just feel much better if we got the test and the dr. said, "are you crazy, nothing's wrong with this kid!" or "yes, this is the problem and here's what we need to do to fix it." 

i hate waiting! 

i hate waiting!!

i hate waiting!!!

ok, sorry about that. back to the story.

so, we're waiting. the end.

#2 The Spider Bite-

Last night jamie kept complaining that he just wasn't feeling well and that he had a wierd rash on the back of his thigh and on his foot. i brushed it off thinking he was just being a baby, but then i saw "the rash." 

it looked like death.

it was like a huge, purple bruise, outlined with a large circle of red. he kept saying that it felt like his leg was burning, kinda itchy. i didn't know what to think and told him he needed to get to the doctor asap the next morning.

so after i left the dr's office with noah this morning, i called jamie to tell him all about our appointment and he says, "i don't want you to worry or anything, but it was a spider bite, the dr. thinks it was a brown recluse. and it looks worse. alot worse. it's like dead flesh in the middle now." EWWWW!!!! *freeaakkkoutttt* I HATE SPIDERS!!!! "dr thinks it happened in bed, so i need you to take all the sheets off the bed and wash everything as soon as you get home." (remember this sentence for another part of the story).

i called Pest Free - our go to pest controllers :)...i just love this company by the way. family business, super nice guys...it's a father/son team that come out to the house and they are always so friendly! they come out and spray once every quarter for bugs, ticks, spiders...they were just here last friday and when i told her what happened she told me that she'd send the guys over as soon as they could get out and since we are regulars there would be no charge (thank you Lord). 

#3 The Storm-

after lunch at La Fiesta with jamie and noah, the weather started looking pretty bad, so we packed up, paid, and ran to the car in the pouring rain. by the time i got home, about 10 minutes later, the sky had started to turn an awful green color. then i heard the tornado sirens! i ran inside, put noah in his crib, ran back outside, grabbed the dogs, put them in their room, ran back to grab noah, grabbed a couple of pillows and my cell phone and went to my closet. this was my first big storm alone at the house with noah. i was terrified. as we were sitting there, i could hear hail starting to hit the roof and windows, and the wind was blowing so loudly. i tried, with trembling hands, to dial jamie, but the calls would never go through. the power flickered on and off, on and off...and the wind continued to howl. noah, oblivious to the storm, tried to eat every pair of flip flops i own :) he didn't care that a storm could possibly be tearing our house down at any moment! 

once the cell phones started working again, i was able to call jamie and he assured me that the storm had almost passed. i then received a call from pest free. they were calling to tell me that they would be late. duh! :) i thought it was nice that they called. then i got a call from my good friend christa...she had a funny story to tell me about walmart, lots of rain, and shorts that were way too big for her...well maybe i should let her tell you that one instead! lets just say that some shoppers got to see a lot more than they expected when they went shopping at wally world today!

at some point while we were in the closet, noah got ahold of my phone and started "baby dialing" ... he called my dad's office, jamie, and 643-1666 ahahahaha! silly boy, he loves to play with electronics just like his daddy!!

after about 20 minutes, i decided to peak out of the closet door just to see if the storm was over...it was still raining a bit, but the worst had past, and just at that moment i heard a knock on the door. it was the guys from pest free. i went outside to survey the damage from the storm and to my great joy, my car was unharmed, our house was intact, and so were our neighbors. one neighbor had a tree down in her yard, and i heard rumor that a tree had fallen on a house on the street behind us.  my in-laws house took a heavy beating though. their patio roof was completely torn off and placed on top of the house roof and all of the patio furniture was thrown around, some of which was broken! crazy, i know! but at least no one was hurt!!

#4 CRAWLING!

tonight we were playing with noah, just rolling around on the floor, listening to all of his new noises and laughs, and all of a sudden he took 2 full "crawls" forward! finally!! no matter that he didn't do it again afterwards, he did it once!!! my baby crawled!!

#5 the coffee table incident-

after noah crawled he noticed a couple of remote controllers on the coffee table, so he wriggled his way over there and proceeded to pull himself up. i had the video camera on him the whole time. sitting on his knees, he played and chewed on that remote, until...

.... he dropped it.  poor baby had to have his remote back so he started to lean down to get it and *crash* face first into the table! he cried and he cried hard...which leads me into my next story!

#6 the cookie incident-

to calm noah down from #5, i gave him a teething cookie. he loves 'em! but he's technically still a little too young for them, so we watch him very carefully while he eats one. of course i had the camera on him this time too. he was doing great, had the cookie all over his face, clothes, hands, legs...i looked down to pet our cat, myra, and i heard coughing. noah "fake coughs" a lot, so that's what i thought it was at first, but after a couple of hard coughs i realized he was choking. i threw the camera down and began to slap his little back. then i stuck my finger in his mouth and pulled out a pretty large piece of cookie. poor little guy. he's had a rough night!

#7 finding the spider-

remember when i said that jamie told me to wash the sheets from our bed, well it was about 8ish and i still hadn't had time to wash them. i took them off the bed after the storm, but i just left them in a pile in the laundry room. so i went to put everything in the washer and as i took my hand off of the quilt i sleep with, i saw it! a large, brown spider with black stripes down its back!  i screamed bloody murder and jamie came running. we captured it, half dead, and put it in a plastic baggie. jamie spent about an hour trying to figure out what kind of spider it is, but we never could find a good picture that looked just like it online. it's body is a yellowy/brown and it's back has 2 black stripes down each part of it's body. it's legs have little black spots on the ends. 

the spider, in it's little plastic bag home, is still on my kitchen counter. jamie killed it a while ago. 

i think i'll bleach that spot tomorrow.