Keeping it Real

After much debate, we're keeping it real around here. This blog is my 21st century "baby book" and the following belongs in Ashenafi's story.

A little summary of the post adoption medical fun we've been having around here. For me personally, I got to get very sick in Ethiopia, took a new antibiotic, had an allergic reaction to said antibiotic, and continued having an itchy rash for over a week afterward. Then somehow the combination of wearing my Ergo carrier constantly, paired with my lovely itchy rash, created a ring of tiny red blood vessels popping out all around my waist in place of the rash (I swear these things were related somehow). So I cut back on the Ergo so my torso could recover, and now I have two sprained wrists (tolerable- not serious just painful) from packing around 26 lbs of kid 18 hours a day. We are becoming very fond of our nice comfy stroller.

Ashenafi is probably wondering what on Earth I'm complaining about, because he's been poked and prodded, force fed medications, had his excrement studied and been subjected to countless other bodily injustices over the past three weeks. Here's a little rundown on his experiences.

When I first received Ashenafi's information from AGCI and discussed it with the International Adoption Pediatrician it was clear we should expect Ashenafi to test positive with a case of latent (also called dormant) tuberculosis when he came home. My pediatrician adopted a child from China who had the same condition and she told me what to expect, she said it was not unusual with international adoptions of all ages, and explained why a TB infection is not imminently dangerous (unless left untreated) or contagious. Eyes wide open, bring it on.

So first order of business when we got home was the full medical work up. At our first doctor's appointment Ashi screamed himself blue at the doctor, got weighed and measured (20th percentile for height, 60th for weight- does Hannah's Hope fatten them up or what!), and we took a very long list down to the lab.

When we got to the lab they took one look at the orders and one look at Ashi and said, "This is all for him? I don't think we can draw that much blood. How much does he weigh? Okay, we can only take 17ml, is he well hydrated?" That was fun. We also left with several containers for the parasite tests (aka poop samples) I would be collecting.

At home I had to call the lab to get instructions for collecting the, uh, samples. "Just make sure the stool doesn't come in contact with the diaper or any urine." Yeah sure, no problem. Did I mention he's 17 months old and doesn't understand English? "Oh, well you're in for a lot of work then. Most parents just put Saran Wrap in their diaper." Can you tell yet that I was talking to a man?

The good news, after 4 days of catching poop, we have no parasites. I was told that it's pretty uncommon to come home without any bugs at all. We also got back all his labs and found out he won't need measles or Hep B shots because he's immune to both, yay!

Doctor's visit #2 was for the TB test. The poor nurse (not out regular one) thought she was just coming to read his test, not administer it. Poor thing, it is not fun giving a baby a TB test because you have to slowly release the liquid under their skin while they squirm and scream.

This is what a positive TB test looks like. A very large and very hard red lump. It even looks painful. This little bump wins you a ticket to the baby torture device used for chest x-rays (a plastic tube they strap them in with their arms over their heads). I remember this device well, we saw it too many times when Christian had pneumonia at this age. At this point I'm sure Ashenafi was convinced that each time we go to the doctor they try to invent a new, more miserable form of baby torture. Boy did they prove him right!

This is also where everything turns upside down. Ashi's cough and cold had gone away, his growth stats and exam showed he had made great progress in the last 6 months and is doing really well. His chest x-ray was supposed to come back clear and we were going to do a long course of antibiotics to kill the TB infection so it wouldn't become TB disease and he wouldn't ever get sick from it in the future.

Instead we got this.That sign says we're in a special negative pressure room to prevent air escaping and that all hospital staff needs to wear this

to come in our room. Talk about freaking a poor little guy out. He had already decided that the white coat people could just evaporate for all he cared, when they all put on space suits and started poking him some more.

We had a lovely hospital stay

and someone went to bed around ten and woke up at six. Someone did, not me. At 6:30 the space people came in a put him in a straight jacket (blanket swaddle- what's the difference really?) and stuffed a tube up his nose and into his stomach to suck out the mucus he swallowed during the night. They didn't find much in his stomach and luckily stopped when the mommy pointed out the blood coming out of the sucker thingy. This was not fun for anyone.

But Mommy brought oatmeal and bottles, so soon all was well again.

Then a nice doctor came to show us the chest x-rays and point out all the yucky stuff in his lungs and how widespread the inflammation was. Unfortunately the disease is not well sectioned off within the lungs as is often the case, but luckily no holes in the lungs and no spreading to other organs.
So we got to go home, where the Health Department has been conducting his treatment. He gets four nasty antibiotics everyday, that have to be crushed up and mixed into food. Luckily spicy Ethiopian food hides the drugs moderately well, but it is still taking two meals and two bottles to sneak it all in. After the labs come in from his stomach aspirate we can hopefully drop two of the drugs. He'll be on these drugs for about 9 months to kill the TB, after which he will have a pretty stellar immunity to TB (add that to his list of nasty diseases he's immune too!). His lungs will grow and heal, and because he's so little the long-term scaring in his lungs should be pretty minimal (or hopefully nothing at all).

For a little while longer we will be avoiding "enclosed public spaces" as requested by the Health Department, and praying for plenty of nice weather so we can get out an about and not be housebound. This means no church, doctor's office or McDonald's (sniff sniff), and lots of the beach, park and drive-through! But luckily children very rarely pass TB because they don't cough hard enough to spread it. Adults pass TB, children just catch it. The nurse who comes to our home and sits a foot away from him doesn't even put on a mask. She also had no problem with Asher spending the day with us today and tells me they won't be testing any of the people we've spent time with since we came home.

She did give me, Grandma and Christian a TB test. She told me today that she really likes Christian- who was super brave and is just a kick in the pants in general. Our TB tests all came up negative, which considering he has been literally coughing in my face for almost a month now, is a pretty good indication that he hasn't been contagious.

So that's been our medical fun and excitement post-adoption. There's nothing like bonding while helping hold your child down to be poked and prodded :)