Fancy Buggy With Chilblains!

"The ideal couple said nothing in particular very beautifully all
the way to town.  Of course Gilbert was too profoundly stirred over
the prospect of seeing his old love to talk to his wife!  Anne
sneezed.  She began to be afraid she was taking a cold in the head.
How ghastly it would be to sniffle all through dinner under the
eyes of Mrs. Andrew Dawson, nee Christine Stuart!  A spot on her
lip stung . . . probably a horrible cold-sore was coming on it.
Did Juliet ever sneeze?  Fancy Portia with chilblains!  Or Argive
Helen hiccoughing!  Or Cleopatra with corns!"

Anne of Ingelside 

In late February Beatrice woke from a nap with an ugly looking welt on one of her fingers. We couldn't imagine what it could be from other than maybe a spider bite. Over the next week and a half it started looking uglier and uglier and on a Sunday afternoon I took her to an Urgent Care Clinic. The doctor took a quick look at her finger, told us it was a cellulitis infection, and prescribed an antibiotic. Within a few days the swollen welt had spread to all of her fingers and two of her toes. I took her in to see the pediatrician. He said it is not an infection, it is something vascular. Likely vasculitis. He wanted a few blood tests run. 

When all of her bloodwork came back normal the pediatrician recommended we take her to a rheumatologist.  We weren't able to get an appt until today.  Meanwhile her hands got no better and she started complaining about her hands and toes hurting her.  We of course scoured google searches of vasculitis to the point where we had worked ourselves up into a tizzy (ok well mostly I was in a tizzy, but Cla was definitely concerned...).  I had anxiety induced delusions of them immediately admitting her to the hospital to amputate her fingers....and that is only a slight exaggeration.

So, they studied her hands and feet, looked at her hands under a magnifier, asked heaps of questions, did some mild poking and prodding....The outcome?  She is chilblains.....CHILBLAINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Everything I know about chilblains I learned from Victorian novels.  And specifically remembered Anne of Green Gables associating them with things utterly unromantic!

So, how does a 2yr old get chilblains, which is basically a cold injury???  With this very very cold and snowy winter we had she literally never went outside.  Not even to play in the snow.  It was simply TOO cold.  Their theory??  When you have a little crittter like Buggy who has no body fat (she is 22lbs and 2yrs old) and with heating oil being what it is....so you keep your house at a very brisk 63-64 degrees.  Well, apparently this is actually cold enough for an underweight child to be unable to regulate their temperature and therefore sustain a cold injury.....IN THE HOUSE!

Her case is pretty bad and will need to be treated medically with some medication after we jump through a few more medical hoops and we must always make sure that she is appropriately bundled (no more running around buck naked for Buggy!).

And this, my friends, is another example of the strange and unusual medical maladies that it seems ONLY my kids can suffer!!!!!  Poor Buggy!  

Lucy's Baptism February, 15th 2014

there is a car under there

rear view of the car...if you look at the side of our front porch.  The snow completely covers the cement steps...it was about three feet deep.

another good measure is the BBQ on the right and the door from our screened porch has a set of 4 or 5 steps down to the ground...completely covered.

and that lump in the middle of the lawn there is a table.  Snow comes up to the bottom of the table.

Lucy was received into the church by baptism on February 15th 2014.  The pictures aren't great because Benjamin, aged 6, was our photographer!  Two days before the baptism we had a rather large snowstorm that dropped a few feet of snow.  Not a huge deal as the streets are cleared pretty quickly around here.  But then the day of the baptism another snowstorm hit.  The forecast had originally called for just a flurry, maybe a dusting.  It turned out to be several more inches.  Our church is an hour away.....and our Godfather was over two hours away (on clear, weather free days!).  So the day was a bit of a crazy fiasco....getting up to the Church in one piece.  And then getting home, where there were guests waiting for us to celebrate the baptism and Ben and Beatrice's birthdays, was even crazier.

But, but the grace of God Lucy received her first sacrament and everyone got to where they need to be and celebrated the best we could!

For Unto Us a Child Is Born..

 

Little Lucy Elizabeth was born on January 25th, on a snowy day, in the wee smas.  Her labor was long.  Well it was long in that it took allllll day for labor to really get started.  But once it started it was quick and she was delivered in a few hours.  But she kept us wondering if she would ever come out!!  She was born at 11:53pm...So when I say ALLL day I mean it!

She was 7lbs7oz......probably my biggest baby (Anna was 7lbs15oz, but she was ten days late and Lucy was born the day before her due date.  She was born with a true knot in her cord and the cord around her neck.  The doc said this may have been why she was so stubborn to come down.  But all was well.  Like the others she was very quiet.  No wailing....just quietly taking things in.  Eyes wide open.  She made little sounds like a kitten.  Unfortunately, I have a new computer and the new new newborn pics are on my other computer.  They will eventually make it here...

She was quickly switched from regular formula to hypoallergenic.  She is not my most content baby, but not my fussiest.  She sleeps well at night.

At her one month well check she had gained a pound and a half and was 8lbs15oz and at her two month check she had gained another pound and was 9lbs15oz. 

I think that is all the relevant information!