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July 31, 2002
She's depraved on account-a she's deprived!
We now have our official EEG appointment with the doctor. The doctor's appointment is at 11am next Friday, and her EEG test is that morning at 8:45.
And she has to be sleep-deprived.
Now, napping is a big sport in our house, so this could take some doing. Here are the rules:
*Put her to bed later than normal on Thursday (say, 10pm)
*Wake her up at 4:00am. At this point she can only have clear liquids.
*She can have no food or water after 6:30am.
*We have to keep her awake from 4am until the EEG test at 8:45, so one of us will have to be in the back seat annoying her until she gets there.
She is going to be one cross bunny.
Posted by Andy at 3:47 AM | Comments (9)
July 30, 2002
The saddest napper
Quinn is mighty pissed that I'm making her take her afternoon napper. There is much moaning and foot-waving in her crib.
If someone put me in a nice, dark room? With blankets and a soft bed? Would I waste my time crying for my mama to come get me out?
I think not.
Our appointment for the pediatric neurosurgeon is August 9. Not exactly Monday or Tuesday, but better than November. Thanks, everyone, for the kind comments and emails. :-)
Posted by Amy at 2:31 AM | Comments (2)
July 29, 2002
Hail seizure!
Usually on Saturday mornings, Amy is super tired, and when Quinn wakes up at 7:00 she says "I'll give you $100 if you get up with her", and I do, and she doesn't. This Saturday, it was my turn to offer the phantom C-note, and so the girls went downstairs to have breakfast.
After a while, Amy called up to me. Hollering across the house is one of my pet peeves, so I knew it had to be something big. Quinn was having her normal "breath-holding" spells ("normal" meaning "normal for her now"), but it was worse. They were longer, and more severe. She looked more annoyed/concerned than usual. I was starting to get as concerned as Amy.
Flashback to Monday, when we took Quinn to Dr. Gronberg for her 9 month checkup. She still wasn't crawling, and she doesn't use her legs for anything, and Dr. G was now calling her little spells "seizures", which wasn't a fun word to hear. He said that we needed to talk to the neurologists at Children's Memorial and have them look at her.
(Side note: For those of you watching the PBS series on CMH, Gail Brodkey was one of the many folks who saw us the first time we were down there.)
We called 'em up, and they said "Oh, we have a waiting list until November." That won't do. Our bunny is having seizures. We went back to Dr. G and asked if he could pull some strings, or do whatever doctor things they do, and he assured us he would, so Wednesday he called 'em, and was told to expect a return call.
Friday, he'd still not heard back, and Amy was getting more and more worried. We talked about the idea of just going back to the CMH ER to make ourselves heard. I didn't think that anything was that much worse. That was Friday. Saturday morning, I agreed with her that it was worse, and since our instructions were to go back if things got worse, off we went.
We got to CMH about 12:30, and a couple of different people saw her, and finally the attending came in and said that it looked like she was having seizures, and that she needed an EEG. Unfortunately, they don't do EEGs on the weekend, and nobody's up in Neuro anyway, so they'd have to call back later. He assured us that we'd get in there some time this week, and I took down names and numbers just to be sure. (I hate calling up someone to say "Um, I talked to someone and he said that I should talk to someone...", instead of saying "Hi, I talked to Dr. Drake Ramoray and he said that if I don't hear back from Dr. Noah Drake by the end of today that I should....")
So we should be going back to CMH some time by the end of the week and they'll do tests and see what her seizures are. Fortunately, she's doing fine and is very happy and went swimming today...
(P.S. Please forgive the "Hail Seizure!" pun for the title. It was either that or "I come to seize your berry, not appraise it".)
Posted by Andy at 1:19 AM | Comments (5)
July 25, 2002
Journal cabal
Quinn and Andy and I got to spend a lovely meal with my favorite Chicago journalers Wendy, Jessamyn and Erin. Here is photographic proof.
This first picture is a silent plea to Ericka.
Tell me this is not the cutest picture EVER. Tell me!!! Jessamyn is so the pretty bunny's best friend.
Andy invited Erin to feed the bunny, which made Quinn suspicious.
"NO I MUST TOUCH IT BEFORE IT GOES IN MY MOUTH! BRING IT HERE! ARE YOU NEW???"
I love getting together with those wack girls, even if we did bore Andy to death with hot journal gossip.
Posted by Amy at 2:25 AM | Comments (4)
July 19, 2002
Sloppy bunny
I don't even know what Quinn was eating for dinner the other night, but she was being a very sloppy bunny!
If Baxter made so much as a rustle, she would immediately crane her head around to find him, then stare at him stupidly until she remembered that she was eating.
"I am supposed to be eating, but I see that a camera is trained upon me, so I will pose for you!"
Dinner concluded with a trip to the sink for the slimy bunny.
The girl, she loves the water...any shape or form.
I greatly enjoy this bunny girl.
Posted by Amy at 12:00 PM | Comments (8)
July 13, 2002
The Saturday that wouldn't begin
Saturday morning...11:30 a.m....and what are Andy and Quinn doing? Sleeping!
I'm getting pretty bored. We are going to go out and have family fun today...as soon as they get their booties out of bed!!
Because, you know, I never take naps.
Quinn let Andy and I go to a movie last night! She stayed over at Aunt Julie and Uncle Denny's house. Julie said she was very good until bedtime. She didn't want to surrender to the bed, I guess, so she stayed up until 9:15! Naughty bunny! But she eventually went to sleep...so maybe Andy and I will see a movie again before Quinn starts college!
Posted by Amy at 12:26 PM | Comments (1)
July 11, 2002
Grandpa's Birthday
Today was Grandpa Coughlin's birthday, which meant a lot of people crammed into my parents' house and Quinn's ass never hitting the floor once.
Here's the shirt Quinn made for Grandpa. Can you read it?
The back has his age, like a baseball jersey, but that picture didn't come out well. Dennis was holding her and he looked like a retarded muppet. Got your back, Den!
Quinn's oral fixation is going strong...
Quinn enjoyed the birthday cake!
Here is a group of people who weren't planning on having their picture taken:
From left to right on top: Dennis, Peggy, and Julie. I think you can figure out the rest.
And here's Quinn and the birthday boy...
After being passed around for three hours, Quinn went down like a rock tonight at bedtime. She's a good bunny.
Posted by Amy at 11:30 AM | Comments (1)
July 10, 2002
What a day what a day what a day
Because I have clearly done something right in my life, USA is now showing "Clueless."
Today Quinn was the happiest I've ever seen her. She was, like, the perfect baby. Happy, content, smiley, entertained herself for long periods of time, didn't cry once.
She was in serious danger of having her cheeks eaten off by a certain mama.
Posted by Amy at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)
July 8, 2002
Happier!
I'm cleaning my office and as a special gift, God has sent me "Sixteen Candles" on TBS. I haven't seen it since I was in the hospital having Quinn. It was Sunday morning, and I was up early and bored...and some station was playing a John Hughes marathon. When I came upon it, I think I was *almost* as elated as I was when Quinn was born.
Samantha has just discovered that her grandparents are in her bedroom. I love Billie Bird more than I love most things.
Oh, was this weblog about Quinn?
She's been fine since her breath-holding antics began. She's still doing it, but we're not supposed to worry about it anymore. It's just a behavior thing, nothing physical. Mmm hmm.
Her grandparents from Idaho came to visit her over the weekend, which was very fun and festive. She stayed with them and her dadder while I skipped off to a Melissa Etheridge concert on Saturday night. She's a good bunny.
She is so smiley and happy and she waves and plays quietly and I think we'll be keeping her.
I wish we could keep Billie Bird, too. Oh my god. Is she dead? checking imdb.com Whew! Still alive! Come on, Billie! Come right over here!
Posted by Amy at 8:47 AM | Comments (1)
July 5, 2002
Hold your breath
We took Quinn to the Children's Memorial Hospital ER this afternoon. All seems OK, but she's a pretty kooky mook to freak us out so.
For the past week or so Quinn has been doing this little trick where she'll hold her breath. She'll be sitting and playing and she'll just stop breathing. She gets a funny look on her face, and sometimes she'll put her hand on her chest, and then she'll let out a big breath, and everything's normal again.
This morning, Amy's Mommy Intuition told her to call the doctor. My dad and his wife Gail are out here to visit Quinn, so it was a bummer to have to take her to the doc, but they understood, of course. Better to do it on a Friday than to have something be really rotten on a weekend. So Dad, Gail & I went antique shopping while Amy, Quinn & Aunt Julie went to the doc.
So the doc checked her out, saw her do the goofy behavior, and couldn't find anything wrong. She said that it definitely was not normal, and she referred us down to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. So off we went.
At least three doctors, a couple of nurses, and a social worker all stopped by to take a look at her. She did her breath-holding trick for every one of 'em, and every single person commented that she was very happy, very cute, and nothing seemed wrong.
They even called some pediatric honcho from the main hospital who came down and also had no clue, but did send her off for some chest X-rays just to be sure. She did NOT like being put into this little seat that looked like an electric chair, and then having her arms velcroed above her head. Worse, we had to leave her there strapped in. "My heart is breaking, just so you know," Amy told me behind the lead glass.
So the chest films came back fine, and the doc said "OK, go home, and follow up with your regular doc on Monday." So here we are.
Posted by Andy at 9:58 AM | Comments (2)
July 1, 2002
Sleep
Yet another curious sleep position for Quinn the Goofy Bunny:
No matter how many times I pull the blanket off her face, she always insists on covering it up again.
Posted by Amy at 10:52 AM | Comments (3)
Fun with water
Quinn is beocming quite the water monkey. The other day we put her in the pool, which was still kind of cold even though it was out in the sun all day. She sat and hunched over and shivered, but she still splashed and enjoyed herself. Even with her bottom jaw shivering rapidly, she didn't even squawk.
We've also got a nozzle on the garden hose where it sprays a single coherent stream of water. Quinn will try to grab at the stream like it's a solid object, and she's very annoyed when she grabs it and it gets her all wet...
Posted by Andy at 10:43 AM
Monday
Andy's home, and we're back to normal.
Quinn and I are about to take Baxter for a haircut.
"Yeah, it's about time cause it's hot outside and I have this fur coat and hey is that a snack? Yeah."--Baxter
Posted by Amy at 7:42 AM | Comments (2)