Hypoglycemia, Anemia, and a few other things too

I haven't posted in a while because things have been a bit rough at our house.  Gemma recovered fully from her freak rash within a week but then immediately started a cold and cough which the rest of us then caught as well.  Gemma spent 3 straight weeks being sick, moving from one illness to another (GI bug, rash, respiratory bug).  Here's hoping she gets at least a solid week of being healthy now.

I was feeling really bad last week too.  I wasn't sure if it was just the lingering affects of the respiratory bug or some weird pregnancy thing or what, but I could hardly get up without feeling like I was about to pass out.  I went to the OB on Thursday and I am still having a very hard time stabilizing my blood sugar - it's still dropping too low.  My doctor suggested eating more in general, including more protein and more complex carbs (Cy interpreted this to mean that I needed to eat a supersize fry at every meal).  I talked with her about checking my blood sugar at the 1 hr. mark instead of the 2 hr. mark so that I could snack sooner if needed.  She predicted that I might find that my blood sugar is spiking too high at the 1 hr. but then my body is producing too much insulin, causing it to bottom out by the 2 hr. mark.  I've started checking my blood sugar 1 hour after eating and surprisingly, this does not seem to be the case.  For the most part, it's surprisingly low even at the 1 hr. mark.  I have had 2 mornings in a row though that it has spiked too high at the 1 hr. after breakfast, even eating fairly low-carb.  So it seems like maybe it just spikes when I eat after fasting overnight and then stabilizes for the rest of the day.  Which explains why I can never pass a glucola test.  But checking after 1 hr. has allowed me to kind of just graze all day and while I'm not happy about this from the aspect of potential weight gain, it has stabilized my blood sugar and kept me feeling a bit better.

While I was at the OB, I also asked them to check my iron again.  About a month ago when I had my diabetes test, they said my iron was a little low but then they never checked it again.  I have been trying to eat some of the iron-rich foods they recommended regularly, but when they checked it again, it had dropped from 11.1 to 10.2 so they decided to start me on an iron supplement.  Hopefully between the iron boost and the constant eating :( I can get stabilized and start feeling better.

In other news, my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel, Lunatics and Lycanthropy, made it through to the second round of this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.  I was surprised and pleased by this since I wasn't going to enter this year due to having no time to prepare but decided it would be silly not to enter.  I threw everything together the afternoon before entries were due.  I'm not expecting to win but it will still be a good experience just like last year.  I am hard at work rewriting my 2011 Nano novel which I would like to enter in next year's contest, or possibly submit to an agent/publisher.  I will be running out of free time to do anything very soon but maybe I can pick it back up in a few months when I start getting some sleep again...

The baby's room is basically done now and I think we've finally settled on a name (which is still a secret).

Gemma has finished learning her colors and is OBSESSED with them.  She points out every color she sees and is so excited about dropping her new knowledge on everyone around her.  She still struggles with orange and brown (she has trouble saying these, and somehow brown comes out sounding oddly like "moo") but is solid on everything else.

And now she is having a random tantrum about something and so I'm wrapping up this post.  Ah, life with a two year old and a newborn is going to be such an adventure...

Colors

Gemma has been working hard learning her colors lately.  Green is her strongest - she picked it up first, followed by red and yellow.  Green is definitely her favorite color, and it's her go-to when she's not sure of a color.  She leaves the final letter off a lot of her words right now and it's so cute because when you ask her to identify something green, she gets very excited and yells: "GREE!"  Red is "rehhh" and yellow is "yeddow."  We have been working with her a lot on identifying colors and she is doing great.  She has a puzzle with 10 different colored fish on it (she has been able to match the fish correctly by color since Christmas but is just now learning the names of the colors) and yesterday she identified 7 of the 10 colors correctly on the first try.  She knew green, red, yellow, white, black, pink, and purple but had a harder time with blue, brown, and orange.  I am so proud of her for learning this already.  It is so much fun when we are out somewhere and she sees a color she recognizes (usually "GREE!") and points it out excitedly to us.  Next we need to start working hard on identifying shapes!

Gemma's Latest Weird Illness

Around Thursday of last week, Gemma suddenly got hit with some sort of stomach bug.  I went to get her Thursday morning only to discover that she had thrown up all over her crib.  She did not vomit anymore but had awful diarrhea constantly for several days afterward.  She finally seemed to be feeling much better when suddenly on Tuesday afternoon, Cy noticed that she had a rash on her neck and under her arms.  Since she has broken out in hives from food allergies several times before, we assumed that this was more of the same, but we could not figure out anything different she might have eaten.  The rash got worse throughout the evening, but we bathed her, put some hydrocortisone cream on the worst spots, gave her some ibuprofen for the discomfort and put her to bed thinking she would be looking much better in the morning.

When she woke up, though, she looked much worse.  The rash was all over her stomach and back (it looked like one big blotch) and had spread to her face a bit - one of her eyes was almost swollen shut.  We decided to take her in to the pediatrician.  I had an OB appointment schedule for 9, and Nana was on her way to watch Gemma.  I wanted to make sure Gemma was okay, so I called and canceled my appointment and then Nana ended up sort of caravaning with us as we went to the pediatrician and then afterward, in search of various medicines.

We were glad that we went ahead and took her in.  Apparently this outbreak was not food-related, and was something different.  The doctor said that she has erythema multiforme minor.  It's basically a freak skin reaction that can be caused by an allergic reaction to a drug, or as a reaction to a virus.  He thought it was caused by whatever GI thing she'd had the week before.  There is a "major" form of this rash too that can be very serious, but he was sure that Gemma just has the minor version.  He said there was not much we could do other than treat the itchiness/swelling of the rash with benadryl and hydrocortisone cream, and use Tylenol/ibuprofen to keep her fever under control, and wait for it to run its course.  And then he told us that it could potentially take WEEKS to completely go away! Yikes!  Poor little Gemma is miserable and we are miserable watching her swollen and itchy from head to toe - I really hope it does not take weeks to clear up.

We felt better after going to the doctor and starting her on some Benadryl and ibuprofen.  However, the next morning when she got up (day 3), she looked even worse.  Her face looked like this:

And her feet were so swollen that they had turned purple and she could barely walk without holding onto something.  Throughout the day, the rash around her mouth kept getting worse and it was looking very streaky so I was starting to worry about infection.  And her feet just kept swelling.  So we decided to take her back in to the pediatrician just to be safe.  They were able to squeeze us in at the very end of the day to see her regular doctor.  He was not worried about her condition and did not want to put her on steroids because he wasn't convinced they would help.  He did give us a bit more information though which was very helpful and reassuring.  He said that bruising is very common with this and that she would probably have quite a bit of bruising because she was so swollen in places.  Also, apparently the pattern of this rash is to start out as dots but then gradually grow more loopy.  So what I thought was streaking was actually just the rash getting "loopy."  And apparently it sort of migrates.  So, she might have it on her chest and then a few hours later, that might be cleared up but it will show up on her face.  Fun times.

Today is day 4, and Cy and I both felt like she was finally looking slightly better this morning:

Her face is still very red and blotchy but seems less swollen.  Her feet and ankles are still purple but they too seem less swollen.  Her hands are slightly less swollen.  She still has splotches all over the rest of her body, but at this point, we are happy for whatever progress she is making toward getting better.  And it's looking like another day of watching movies most of the day for us because all she wants to do is sit around and cry (and I don't blame her).  Here's hoping that in a few more days she'll be feeling a bit more like herself.

Also, after just dealing with something fairly minor like this for even a few days, I feel so much sympathy for parents of chronically ill children (and of course, I feel for the kids too).  I have a couple of friends with children who have very severe problems that require ongoing treatment and some really tough decisions to be made by the parents.  We have been hurting for Gemma so much just watching her suffer through what is a relatively mild and (thankfully) temporary thing.  I can't imagine going through what some other families are going through, and yet they are some of the strongest people I've met.  This has made me thankful yet again that aside from allergies and being underweight, Gemma is overall very healthy.  I am praying and hoping that her little brother will be born strong and healthy too.

Nautical Hobo Bag

I saw this really cute nautical hobo bag on Forever 21's website. 

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Unfortunately I have made the mistake of ordering a bag from their site before and having it be just insanely HUGE.  I like big bags (and I cannot lie) as much as the next person, but I'm talking I could have fit like three of Gemma in said bag.  Also I love Forever 21's stuff but honestly it is extremely cheap (meaning the quality) so I decided not to pay $23 for a low quality bag when I could make it myself (and make it whatever size I wanted) for less than $10.

I hate using patterns so I found this great hobo bag tutorial online.  I used the pattern and tutorial for the basic outline and instructions, then branched out on my own for the straps so that I could copy the idea of the Forever 21 bag.  Here is what I ended up with:

I really like the size and style of the bag.  I think overall it turned out pretty great especially since I was basically just piecing it together based on a picture I'd seen on the internet.  The only thing I would change (and I may still redo it if I feel like it, but I am feeling pretty lazy these days, so I doubt it) is that I might make the red strap a bit longer and a bit narrower.  And the best part?  I think I paid about $6 total for the supplies and it took me maybe 2 hours to make.

I might get really crazy and try to make myself a matching pair of flat using this tutorial I came across on pinterest.  Who knows?  Could be awesome.