The Good, The Bad and the Scary

I meant to write this blog last week, but unfortunately, we had quite the scare with Phoenix last Friday. Since then I was under the weather for a few days with a cold and we all struggled to adjust to the time change, especially after the emotional stress of Friday. Now just a few days later all is good again. 

You are likely wondering what the big scare was. Well, after playing in the park for 3 hours and the three of us taking a nap, I noticed Phoenix had bruising/rash on her foot and leg. I emailed the photo to Keith and Phoenix's doctor. To make a long story short she was quickly seen, had her blood drawn (poor thing) and cleared of any serious illness. She was a bit anemic, which is normal for a 4-6 week old and her blood work  showed that she was trying to fight a virus. I thank God for the amazing medical care that we have. We are so lucky, when so many Americans have little to no medical coverage.

On top of this Phoenix has continued to have blood in her stool. The doctors told me to basically give up almost all food or put Phoenix on a hypoallergenic formula. I had already given up dairy, soy, caffeine, chocolate, corn and eggs. I was proud of myself for being able to cook on those restrictions. Here is my first home made calzone. They turned out great. Axel even loved them. Unfortunately, now that I have given up seafood, wheat, nuts, citrus fruit, tomatoes, and so forth, I will not be able to use the same calzone recipe. The past few days I have been buying and reading up on how to make breads, pancakes, etc with oat flour, rice flour, potato flour, potato starch and xanthum gum. It is a whole new ball game and I have a lot to learn. My pancakes were a little crumbly, but for a first try were not too bad. The trick to using these alternate flours is putting in enough starch to make them stick together and not crumble. Tomorrows project is making my first bread with these ingredients because I am sooooo hungry!!!! 

All of this effort has not been in vain because miss little Phoenix has had three days of no blood in her stools and most of them are yellow and no longer green!!!! This is very exciting news, which makes for a happy Phoenix, which makes for a happy mommy, which makes for a happy household.

The highlight of my week last week was a surprise visit from Great Grandma and Grandpa Burgess. I received a phone call the week before last from Grandma asking if I would be around Tuesday morning. Luckily, Tuesday was free from doctor's appointments or other commitments and I was able to enjoy a short visit with them. I hadn't seen them in quite sometime because my usual trips to Sacramento were cancelled because of Grandma Susan being busy with work and helping her sister in law all last year. It was such a pleasure to be able to chat with them even if it was for just a couple of hours. I really appreciated the fact that they made an effort to visit.  Although Phoenix was asleep most of the time, they were able to meet Phoenix and get a quick picture with her. Unfortunately, Axel was at daycare and missed the visit.

With Phoenix's food sensitivities we are pushing harder to get her comfortable with the bottle. She does great with both daddy and Axel. Next goal is to get her comfortable with me feeding her the bottle just in case we have to go to the formula. We are all hoping that she will grow out of these sensitivities quickly and that she will be able to continue nursing, but if not, we are all happy that we gave it our best shot.

Axel gets his 4 year photos tomorrow and one of his buddies, Rishaan turns 4 on Monday. We are attending his birthday party on Sunday so check back soon!