Category Archives: health

Passing Out

Have any of your kids ever passed out or fainted? I realize it is a strange question. My daughter has these “seizures” when she experiences pain, such as falling on her arm wrong or hitting her head. Thankfully, she only gets hurt really bad about once a year.

About three weeks ago she hit her head really hard on the wall while playing with her sister. She started to cry that “I’m really in a lot of pain” cry. Then she went into a seizure of sorts. I had hoped it was a phase she would outgrow.

My mom tells me that I was Copy Cat’s age I held my breath whenever I got mad. One day, I fainted and according to my mother never held my breath again. My daughter doesn’t seem to be growing out of this phase. And I’m starting to wonder if she ever will.

When Copy Cat was an infant in the NICU she would have “episodes” where she would stop breathing and they would have to perform modified CPR on her. Many times it was challenging for the nurses to get her to breath again. After this recent episode, I’m wondering if when she was an infant her response to pain was this seizure?!? I’ve found that my attempts to bring her out of her episodes don’t work. At Christmas one year it was taking her such a long time to “come to” that I yelled at my father-in-law to call 911. It’s that scary!

When Copy Cat was about 18 months old I took her to a neurologist to see if maybe she had a form of epilepsy or other neurological disorder. He agreed to run an EKG test. The good and the bad from the EKG was that they found no seizure activity during the stress test.

I’ve been asking around and one of my friends wondered if her seizures were just a part of her passing-out. Hmm. Interesting, yet scary. So what happens if she gets hurt when I’m not around? Will someone be close enough to her to make sure she comes out of it? Another friend wondered if Copy Cat was having anxiety seizures.

I’m at a loss. I don’t know where to go from here. I’ve researched all types of seizures online and I cannot find one that fits perfectly. Or maybe I’m looking under the wrong topic. Does anyone have any ideas or advice about where I go now? Thanks!

by Kelly Damron

Photo graciously provided by Peter Baer, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Causes and Prevention of ER Visits

When I was pregnant with my older son (OS) I of course worried about everything. It’ s no surprise then that one potential aspect of parenting that I worried about was having to take my child to the ER. Knock on wood, but I’ve never needed stitches, and the only bone I’ve broken was my finger playing football in gym class in 8th grade. It was my middle finger though, and my other young teenaged classmates and I got a kick out of the fact that a cast held that finger so that it was rigidly pointing upward for a long time.

My first ER visit as a parent was when OS was eight days old. I had a breast reduction 10 years before OS’s birth, and with the support of a lot of nurses and a lactation consultant, I was breastfeeding OS. Even though he was being supplemented, he had lost too much weight. Ultimately he was fine, but I was a wreck from having to take my teeny tiny newborn into a germ infested waiting room. Fortunately, they took age into account, and our wait was short.

About a year later, the day before we were leaving to spend Thanksgiving in Chicago with family, I changed OS’s diaper and realized his poop looked like coffee grounds. I had read that if I ever saw stool like that, I should immediately call the doctor. I did, and we were referred to the ER. I brought that diaper with me which turned out to be a really good thing because they were able to take a sample without having to wait for OS’s next poop. The culprit? A spinach quiche that my neighbor had given him. The pediatrician said that in his practice he had literally seen “some weird sh*t”. My husband expressed his condolences. We flew out the next day as planned.

The first year OS was in preschool, he developed the walking pneumonia that all his classmates and their dogs seem to have. My younger son (YS) is a typical younger sibling, in that he wants whatever his older brother has. At four months old, he caught walking pneumonia. Because of his age, he was sent to the ER where they did an infant x-ray. How’s that any different? Basically the child sits on something that looks like a bicycle seat surrounded by plastic while being being suspended by his armpits. As the tech told us, the more they cry, the more air they take into their lungs and thus the better the quality of the x-ray. I think this was supposed to make me feel better about YS’s wailing. It didn’t. The crying also apparently didn’t improve his x-ray.

A couple months ago, OS got a nymph deer tick on his lower eye lash. Because of it’s location we were sent to the ER in case he had to be sedated. Fortunately, the fourth doctor who tried was able to get it off of him without having to put him under.

Last week we were on the way to my doctor’s office to return a magazine I had walked off with. For those of you who read my personal blog, the whole account is written there. When the elevator dinged, an excited 3 year old YS pressed his hands against the door. When the door retracted, it took his hand up to his forearm with it. I couldn’t get it out, and I was scared the elevator would start moving. I finally did manage to get his hand out, and not surprisingly, it was swollen. Since we were practically right across the street from his pediatrician, we went there to have it examined. I have since learned that this happened to the finger of a child of a friend of mine. When I visited the fire department to report the elevator, I learned that elevator sensors are too high to sense a small child.

While a little banged up and very scared, YS was fine. I think what I’ve taken away from all of it is that you can do your best to cover those outlets, baby proof your house and hold your child’s hand when he’s in the parking lot. And quite frankly you should. If I can prevent an accident, than by all means, I’m going to do my best.

However, I can’t put my kids in a bubble. Accidents will happen. They’re just part of life. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad parent. Certainly I’ve told my kids numerous times to not touch elevators doors. But again, if you can prevent them why not? I don’t know if it would have made much difference, but had I known that this could happen with an elevator, I would have been stronger in my conviction when I told my kids to never touch elevator doors.

On the other hand, then something else might have happened instead.

by Alex Elliot

Photo graciously provided by bitzcelt, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Just Say No

When I was a child, my mother was a heavy smoker. Every so often she tried to quit smoking, but she never lasted more than a few days, days that my brother and I still remember as tough on us all. I don’t think she ever yelled at us as much, or as arbitrarily, as she did on those few cigarette-free days.*

You might expect the odds to be high that my brother and I would end up smoking, but we didn’t. Our mother made sure of it. It was one of her finest parenting moments when she called us into the family room where she was smoking and watching the news. I was perhaps three years old, and my brother five. She smiled almost seductively as she said, “I’ll bet you two want to try my cigarette, don’t you. It looks like fun, doesn’t it?” And she held out her cigarette for us to see before she continued: “Now here’s what you do. You take a deep breath in, and then blow it out.”

Of course we weren’t going to resist the opportunity suddenly before us, and she was counting on that fact. I took the cigarette and sucked in as hard as I could. Instantly I was choking on the smoke. I found the taste bitter and altogether awful; within moments, I felt dizzy and nauseated. The experience was vile and consequently unforgettable, for me and my brother both.

Later, when my brother and I were in elementary school, our mother would occasionally remind us of that time, as well as reinforce the memory with the verbal message that smoking was a disgusting habit that was also extremely unhealthy. Short of her not smoking at all, she did everything she could to ensure that my brother and I would never smoke. We became so adamantly opposed to smoking that we used to flush her cigarettes down the toilet. Oh, she loved us then!

Last month, my fifth-grade son started a unit in school on drug and alcohol awareness and prevention. Since then, when he sees his father open a bottle of beer or me pour a glass of wine, he shrieks. “Don’t DO that!,” he exclaims. “It will KILL you!” His fervor makes us laugh. But at the same time we are thankful to the school district for engaging students on this topic.

It will take some time before my son understands the difference between using alcohol and abusing it. Until then, I am happy to see him so riled up about alcohol and drugs. He is about to enter middle school, where he will be exposed to all kinds of new ideas and activities, some wonderful and some not so wonderful. Is it too much to hope that, like my brother and I before him, my son remains as appalled by the idea of alcohol and drugs as he is right now?

*When she was 61 years old, my mother was diagnosed with a smoking-related cancer. Thankfully, she survived the cancer. She died this April at 72 years old, but it was not smoking that killed her.

by Slouching Mom

Photo graciously provided by HAMED MASOUMI, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Parenting Your Parent: Managing Medications

I have observed that there is a direct correlation between aging, and the number of prescription drugs that a person uses.

Simply put, the older you are, the more prescriptions you have.

We won’t even talk about the vagaries of Medicare Part D – and especially the dreaded “donut hole“, which is one of the most patently absurd things our Government has ever visited upon the elderly. (Seriously – Don’t EVEN get me started on this!)

Today, our discussion is about actually managing the medications that your Mom and/or Dad needs every day.

Because there can be an overwhelming number of pills, the first thing you should do is schedule a Caregiver Meeting (if you haven’t already!) with your parent’s doctor. Take along a definitive list of all the medicines – over the counter and prescription – that your parent currently takes. The list should tell the doctor not only the NAME of the drug, but also the STRENGTH, and the TIME OF DAY that your parent typically takes the medicine. An easy way to do this is to make a simple table – showing what pills Mom takes at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime.

During this meeting, make sure that Mom or Dad actually NEEDS all the medicines that they are taking. Sometimes, a medicine may no longer be needed, or may even be contraindicated with another medication. It may be possible to combine two existing medicines into one “new” pill. Be sure to discuss with the doctor WHEN the best time is to take each medication – some prescription drugs work better when taken at a specific time of day, or with/out food, etc.

At home, you need a system to manage what can be an overwhelming number of pill bottles, and little pills. If there are grandchildren frequently in the home, or if Grandma and Grandpa live with the grandkids, then it is very important to have locked storage for medicine.

Dispensing the medicines can be made easier by using a “pill minder” box (7 compartments, each lettered for a day of the week) for each time of day when a dose of medicine is administered. Some “pill minder” systems have four boxes (for breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtime) so that you can set up a week’s worth of pills at once. This should help reduce confusion, and makes it easier for your Mom or Dad to tell at a glance if they have taken all of their medication for the day.

Finally, you need to check periodically to make sure that your parent is still able to manage their own medication. Keep an eye out for signs of trouble, such as obviously skipped doses, pills on the floor under furniture, and medications that either run out too soon, or not at all.

By helping your parent effectively manage their medications, you are helping to promote their wellness, and improve their quality of life!

by Thimbelle

The Joys of Summer

I’m not one of those people who has a problem with bugs. Sure I’m not exactly handing out invitations for tea parties with spiders, but if one so happens to make a guest appearance while I’m eating dinner, I’m not going to freak out.

When we first moved to MA eight years ago next month, we received a phone call from our next door neighbor. Of course, me being lonely and not knowing anyone, I immediately assumed that it was an invitation to a tea. Not the case. She was calling to inform me she had spotted a tick on our dog’s head when she was petting him over the fence. Turns out that he actually had 7 dog ticks. Yes, he’s on anti-tick medicine but that doesn’t prevent ticks from crawling on him; it’s just when they bite him they die. I had never seen a tick before, but I thought I handled it well. No panicking, just a lot of amazement for what the ticks looked like and the number of them our dog had.

A few years later I dropped my son off at my friend’s while I went to an ob/gyn appointment. My friend had OS playing in her sandbox. He had a great time. After we got home, I changed his diaper. That’s when I noticed that he had a dog tick in his diaper region. I removed it and called the pediatrician. We were told to keep on eye on the bite site.

We’ve had other tick incidents as well. In fact someone gave me the great idea to circle the bite site with a permanent marker so that you know what area you’re checking on each day. Certainly our dog has continued to get them.

All this though was nothing compared to what I observed yesterday during breakfast: a moving speck about the size of poppy seed lodging itself right under the lower lashes of my son’s right eye. I must admit, for the first time I did start to feel a little bit squeamish. I’m not sure if it was the tick or just how close the tweezers were to his eye as my husband and I tried to remove it. Figuring this was a job for the pediatrician, we traded the tweezers for the phone. Our pediatrician then referred us straight to the ER where after several doctors and numerous attempts the tick was finally removed. It was a nymph dog tick.

Ahhh….summer is just around the corner.

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