Liam is 4 months old!!

BIG LIAM!

-Liam weighs 18lbs 5oz!! Can you believe it? He is 26 3/4 inches long. He's HUGE! Syd at 4 months was 16lbs 8oz and 26 1/2 inches, so he still has her beat!

-He is still sleeping 10-12 hours a night! We're so lucky!!

-He's now obsessed with rolling over. OBSESSED. Everytime I lay him on the floor, his flips right over, and then flips back over...it's too funny!

- He is still eating 7 oz at each feeding, and cereal twice a day. We just incorporated apples into his diet today and he seemed to really like them! I didn't think he would be picky :-)

-He enjoys sitting in his bumbo seat.

-He coos a lot still and now has this weird scream thing he does. He doesn't do it because he's mad or anything, he just does it to hear his own voice I think!

-He laughs ALL the time! The silliest things make him giggle. When I say words funny or babble.

-He loves to play peek-a-boo. Everytime I say, "Peek-a=boo, I see you!" he responds with a coo or a laugh. He also likes to play patty-cake. His favorite part is when I pat his belly with his hands. He just laughs so hard!

-He tries to grab everything now. When we were in MN recently, he clinched onto a french fry and wouldn't let go! Jimmy had to break it in pieces to get it out of his hand!

-He's VERY oral...way more than Syd. He puts everything in his mouth.

He has favorite toys already. He loves his puppy (Leap Frog Scout). It's amazing! You can program it to say your child's name, favorite color and food, and you can select the songs it plays!! And he has a thumbie dinosaur Sydni got him when he was born and he snuggles that, too!!

-He naps now between 8:30-9:30am (he gets up between 6:30-7:30am) then sometimes (not very often) a short nap around 12-1pm and then about 45 minutes to an hour between 3:30-5pm and goes to sleep between 7 and 8:30pm.

-Bath time is either right before his night time bottle, or right after....depending on how persistent he's being about eating right after his late nap.

-He is still wearing some 12 month old clothes, more 12-18mo and even 18-24 month shirts! He is such a big guy!!!

-He wears a size 4 diaper. That seems HUGE.....but he's just a big guy!

-He's a finger chewer now, too. I think he's teething. It seems a little early, but you never know!

-He got 4 shots! He is so sad afterwards. He went to bed early. Thank goodness for tylenol!

My Life is Chaos, and sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't

So...got my blood test results back. Complete blood count (cbc) normal meaning that my platelet count- normal, red blood cell count- normal, white blood cell count- normal, hemoglobin- normal. Hep b bloodwork- normal, meaning hep dna- 42 (very low level, almost perfect), bili level- 1.0 (really good, but has never been bad before), alkaline phosphate- 52 (normal), ast- 27 (liver enzyme within normal range), alt- 38 (another liver enzyme within normal range, which wasn't in January). And thyroid bloodwork- normal. Tsh (The TSH test is often the test of choice for evaluating thyroid function and/or symptoms of hyper- or hypothyroidism. It is frequently ordered along with or preceding a T4 test)- Normal. T4 (a hormone produced by the thyroid gland)- Normal.

So, that's good that everything is normal. But bad, because that doesn't explain any of my pain in my side and back.

My ultrasound results were "unremarkable" in the good way. My gallbladder was normal, all of the ducts were normal, my pancreas was normal, liver was normal, no masses or spots on the images, my right kidney was great.

So I am going to my regular doctor tomorrow to get a mono test done....hopefully, and this is why.

My current symptoms:

- Fatigue (super bad)

- Headache

- Body aches, specifically left leg in the middle of my thigh on the back, my upper left arm

- Neck pain, pretty much goes from the top of my neck, down the left side, down across my shoulder and behind it all the way under and up my left armpit.

- A "full" looking neck, as my hepatologist said. Not like a rollie pollie neck, just full from the middle to the base.

- Throbbing, stabbing pain under (not below, so more like behind) my rib cage on the left side.

-Ribs feel bruised on the left side (bottom 3 ribs)

-Pain in ribs radiates to my back.

Okay, so sort of sounds like kidney stuff, but I've had an enlarged spleen before (spleen is located on your left side behind your rib cage) and it hurt SOOOOOO bad it made me fall asleep....like I had no other choice except screaming. This feels just the same. I've also had mono before and it made me SUPER tired.

Anyways, mono can cause your spleen to enlarge, thus I think this might be my problem. Your lymph nodes swell also, which could be why my neck hurts and it travels to my armpit, but there are lymph nodes there, too.

I'm also going to my ob to get my pap done. Yeah yeah maybe tmi, but I also want to go to make sure the lymph nodes in my armpits aren't related to my boobs somehow because they (my lymph nodes) got huge during the last weeks of pregnancy with Liam.

Wow, I sound like such a complainer and hypocondriac. Oh well. I might be complaining, but I think I have the right to, and I'm not a hypocondriac. I just want to FEEL BETTER!!

Yesterday I only held Liam like 3 times all day because my side hurt so bad in the morning and afternoon. :-( It made me so sad. I felt like I didn't help with him at all yesterday. And I know Jimmy is fully capable of doing all of it, but I wanted to contribute because it was weird not to since I take care of him by myself everyday because Jimmy is at work.

On a random note, Jimmy and I went to dinner last night by ourselves (my mom watched the kids). It was GREAT. We went to a place we love, Yai Yai's. DELICIOUS. We had Carpacchio, a trio dessert with Mango Raspberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Souffle, and an Apple Bread Pudding, and then I had Salmon with Lobster Ravioli, and he bad Vegetable and Seafood Lasagna. YUM. I was STUFFED. It was so weird eating out without Liam and Syd! I mean, we just got to eat without holding Liam of cutting up food for Syd, or taking her to the bathroom, or feeding Liam. It seems so simple, but it was great!

Okay. I think I'm done for the night. I'm SO TIRED.

Where have I been?

Well, I've been feeling like poo to be quite honest.

I went to my hepatologist and found out that one of my liver enzymes are still double, which isn't good. I was taken off my Lamivudine (hep meds) and was told that if my numbers shoot up really fast I'll be put on another medicine asap, or if they steadily climb that would be what would happen, too. The new medicine is called Tenofovir. It's meant more for long term use than the Lamivudine, and the Lamivudine you can become resistant to, so this is the safest alternative for long term use especially if I want to expand my family in the future.

Then while I was there he looked at me and said, "hmmm, your neck looks full." Then he examined it, and said "yep, I think you're thyroid glands are swollen." AWESOME. So I had blood work done to check that out. Isn't that juuuuuust peachy?

So then I told him about this weird pressure pain I've been getting right at my bra line on my right side (my liver side, that is) and he told me to get an ultrasound done to see if maybe it was gallstones, and if it came back as a no, maybe do an endoscopy (the shove a tube down your throat and check out your stomach and such). I had one done about 5 years ago, and everything was a-okay. Anyways, I got my ultrasound done on Thursday and the preliminary results said no gallstones. I don't know whether to be happy about not having gallstones, or sad because it could be my liver....

So....at the moment I am waiting for thyroid blood work and hepatitis bloodwork and a rundown of the rest of the ultrasound from my hepatologist. Hopefully I'll be getting a call early next week.

With all of this going on, I've been VERY tired. I had my hep appt on Tuesday, Jimmy worked until 9 on Wednesday, my ultrasound Thursday, Sydni's V-day party Friday, she has a playdate today, we are celebrating v-day as a family tomorrow followed by a soccer game and then Jimmy and I are going to v-day dinner tomorrow night because he works 1-9 on Monday......WHEW.

On another note, we are finally going to be able (cross your fingers) to go to MN this coming Saturday to see my Grandma!! I'm soooooooo glad. I haven't told her yet. I'm thinking about surprising her!!

Okay...so wish my luck on all of my health ailments. Did I mention hep blows??? If not, HEP BLOWS.