Mendez Musings: March Madness at the Mendez House

Hello all! Sorry I'm a bit late but as the title says, it's been a bit of madness around here lately.

The month of February could be called the Month of Germ Warfare in the Mendez house. Seriously. We saw the insides of four different hospitals this past month. Three of which I would never ever want to step in again in my entire life.

The very beginning of the month had me rushing to the hospital late at night - a false alarm scare with the pregnancy. Don't worry, I'm completely fine and so is the baby. But let me just say that if I had ever considered giving birth in a Croatian hospital, that experience changed my mind.

Then we saw a local pediatrician because Abby was still refusing to sleep (from the cold back in January) and waking up every hour and a half and I was worried she was coming down with something again. That pediatrician was a total quack, so the next day I tried out a new pediatrician office and they seemed to be very good. They ruled out sickness, but started to blame gas and stomach pain - so we started talking food allergies or possible reflux. Which led to a starting a huge battery of allergy and bloodtests. Which took us to another hospital (where they do lab work on children here).

In the middle of this process, Abby got a horrible horrible norovirus (stomach virus -- I'm convinced she must have picked it up in the hospital while doing all that testing). In about an hour, she literally puked up everything she had eaten in the past 24 hours. I totally freaked and we took her to the hospital that evening. That in itself is a long horrible story, so let's just say that two hospitals, many traumatic experiences with needles and doctors later, and at about 4:30am, we pulled Abby out of the hospital and brought her home. She was extremely dehydrated and very ill, plus the whole gas/no sleeping thing was still going on.

We finally got out of Croatia and went to London to see some "real" doctors, where she started to improve after the virus, and we got some real help finally. We saw a pediatrician, an allergist and a pediatric gastroenterologist all within our first 24 hours in London. The general consensus is that she was getting better on her own from the virus and the initial problem was probably due to reflux. So she was admitted to a London hospital so they could run the tests for that, and then check out a couple other things to rule them out as a precaution. So that was our last hospital for the month.

I can't tell you how impressed and overwhelmed by the level of service in London. We saw some of the best doctors in London, plus the nurses and staff were just so great with Abby. They were just wonderful, and thought the "Americans" were quite amusing because we kept thanking them for taking such good care of us. (Oh, and I got the stomach bug from Abby while in London, but not half as bad as Abby. It just made our hotel stay in London so much more pleasant, if you catch my drift. Thankfully I got over it more quickly than she did.) And we were just so relieved to finally be getting real answers and real treatment after dealing with Croatian doctors for so long. And everyone there is just SOOOOO nice. We loved it.

While in London, we tried to get out a bit and enjoy our week back in civilization. We ate Indian and Lebanese and Chinese for dinner, we took Abby to the zoo on the Sunday - which was a HUGE hit - and we played in the park a couple of times. We also went to Hamley's, which is the big famous toy store there and bought coloring books. (I came with nothing to entertain Abby, not thinking we'd be there so long.) We ate in a pub a couple of times, so Joel could have a "pint." So the trip wasn't all bad.

We came home on Saturday, March 1st, and Abby was back to her normal spunky toddler self on the plane ride. We had to say "Bog (hi)" to every single person on the plane, we colored, we ate cheerios one by one, we sang "The Wheels on the Bus," we counted Mommy's fingers over and over, and anything else I could think of to entertain her for two and a half hours. Yep. my little girl was back; just about at the time where I really wanted her to take a nap!

To answer your questions: as of writing this, we have not heard back from the doctors in London yet. We are waiting on the test results from while we're there. So we don't have a real definitive answer on what's going on with Abby. We're still operating the assumption that she has reflux unless we hear something different. Which is completely easy to deal with.

And Abby is doing fine now, because I know you all are worried. She is dancing a little jig right beside me because the babysitter is about to take her for a walk. She also waves "Bye Bye", blows kisses, and gives "Big Hugs." (We watched a lot of Teletubbies at the hospital in London.)

So that was our exciting month. We are very glad to be home now and back to our somewhat normal lives! Before all that, we did make that trip to Aviano to stock up, I had friends over to scrapbook again, and we are making inroads (very slowly) in the details of our move.

In the good news column of this post, Abby did pee in the potty! Just once before she got sick, but hey I'll take it! She especially liked the M&Ms she got as a reward. Maybe if I get up enough gumption to try again in the next couple of weeks, we'll start over.

I think I'm also becoming one of those germ-phobic mothers I swore I'd never be, and probably will be investing in crates of hand sanitizer and clorox disinfecting wipes. Maybe I'll even look into installing one of those CDC deconamination units at the door of the house - like you see in the movies. Just kidding. A little. I am being very strict about how much we take Abby out of the house and where we take her and who she comes into contact with - we have dropped her swim class and playgroup until I'm sure her immune system is fully up and running. Joel and I are taking turns going to church so that I don't have to put her in the nursery.

So, what's up for March? Well, sleeping in our own beds for one thing! No really, we've got a long to-do list for our upcoming move that we really have to make major progress on this month. We are at about 100 days and counting before we leave! Plus I have got to get working our taxes and get them in this week, and I'm plowing ahead on my career coaching business. I've filled out all the paperwork for our website designer, and she is busy working on her end of things as we speak. I have another OB appointment this week I think, (after which I will post again for you guys and give you an update) and lots of running around after Abby.

So, here are a couple pictures of February -