The following Monday after her actual birthday was her 1-year pediatric appointment, and I would say everything is looking good, more or less. She weighed in at 21lbs, 28.5 inches long, and had a head circumference of 17.25" -- the pediatrician showed me her growth chart and she's healthily in the 50% percentile across the board! At the time of her appointment, she was at the tail-end of a tummy bug, and we were worried that it was the formula - to - milk conversion we were in the middle of, but the doctor assured us that so long as yogurt and cheese hadn't been bothering her to date, we shouldn't need to worry about lactose intolerance. In fact, she added that there were a lot of virus-like stomach bugs coming into their office recently so we were to just let it run its course.
The one thing that did come to light at the appointment was the doctor believed she had heard a heart murmur while checking Sam's chest. She didn't seem too concerned, and even assured me that it wasn't something that I needed to lose sleep over, but because she was a year old and we had never heard it before, she wanted confirmation from the pediatric cardiologist. Of course, the fact that we had never heard it before led her to believe it's an innocent murmur, and could have been heard for a number of reasons, but she still wanted Sam checked at Children's and would get the referral paperwork submitted for me. And that's where we'll be going this afternoon -- all the way out to Waltham in rush hour traffic for our 2:30pm appointment with the cardiology department with Children's Hospital. Again, I'm not trying to freak out -- heart murmurs happen all the time, even my sister has one! And the fact that it was never heard before, hasn't been heard since in the 2 times we've brought Sam back to the pedi (more on that later), and it clearly doesn't seem like it's affecting her way of life -- so it's really just going to have the confirmation of yes, she has an innocent murmur, or no, there's nothing there and no further need to worry.
So despite all of this, we've been fighting a nasty little bug that's made its way from Samma, to me, to my sister, to my mom, and finally to Chris... and the poor thing still has something lingering. After a week of Sam having a running nose, congestion, and just being off, and I myself being diagnosed with a sinus infection, we brought her to the pediatrician to have her checked out. Everything was clear -- no problems with her ears, nothing lingering in her chest -- so the pediatrician suggested the coolmist humidifier (which we were already doing) and 3/4 tsp of Benedryl at night to dry her up and help her sleep. Needless to say the Benedryl helped a LOT, but a week last she was still congested, and this time she was forming a cough, and I wasn't all that comfortable with giving her sleeping aids for longer than a week, so after my mothers was diagnosed with a sinus infection this time around, I called into the nurse and explained the situation to her. She was understandable, and we made a plan to have Samma brought in that afternoon -- have I mentioned how much I love having a pediatrician opened 7 days a week? As I was out and about, Chris brought Sam to her appointment, and again everything was clean and clear, and it was just a virus that we needed to let run its course. When Chris mentioned the Benedryl we were giving her, the doctor rolled her eyes.... this was the Sam doctor who was anti-Oragel, so we didn't take much to heart. She confirmed that they no longer give cough medicine to kids, so Benedryl was the only option left, and she even said herself that it's not going to hurt her, she just despises giving any child medicine for any reason.... old school hard ass.
Anyway, last night was the first night in over a week we put Sam to bed without the Benedryl. Other than a wakeup at 1:30am to change a wet diaper, and fussing at 5am to get out of bed at 5:30am, it wasn't that bad of a night -- her runny nose is more or less gone, but we're still fighting the cough, so it's good to see we're on the upswing!
