Hi Everyone from Sam

Now that I'm coming up on six months of age, I thought it would be a good time to write my first official blog update. In addition, the past 4 days have been quite intense for my mom and dad, so I thought I would share the events from my perspective. First of all, I want to thank you all for reading our family blog and keeping in the loop of what is happening to the three of us. My parents told me that some of you have been reading about me and looking at pictures from before I was even born! So here goes with my first update...

On Friday morning, I woke up around my normal time and was a little bit cranky. My mom and dad assumed that it had something to do with the busy Thanksgiving holiday, but it turns out that they were wrong...

But anyways, back to Friday. I was really excited because we were planning on seeing Nona JoAnn, the Mellos, Uncle Pat and the whole Perez clan at the tree lighting ceremony at Christmas In The Park, so mom and dad weren't all that strict with my normal nap schedule. In fact, at one point in the afternoon, I even fell asleep while my mom was holding me!Mommy and daddy thought this was really cute, but I was actually starting to feel pretty yucky and I think that is why I passed out. When I woke up from my nap in the late afternoon, my parents knew that something was wrong. I was not smiling and they couldn't get me to laugh. Even when they put me in front of the mirror, I wasn't interested at all (normally, I love the mirror). They took my temperature (I was not happy about this) and it was a little bit high. Since I wasn't my normal chipper self, they called the advice nurse for help. Not too long after that, the advice nurse and Dr. Triantos (my doctor) decided that some Tylenol and close monitoring of my temperature should keep everything under control.

Once I got the Tylenol, my fever went down and I was much happier. I just love the cherry flavor of that stuff! Mommy and daddy were so nervous, but much happier when I started to feel better. When I woke up on Saturday, I was much happier and daddy decided that it would be okay to go hunting for the day.

As a precaution, mom took me to the pediatrician. I seemed to be feeling better (little did she know!), and she expected to be told that I was teething and just a little grouchy from that.

To make a long story short, the on-call pediatrician took one look at me and knew that something was wrong. She insisted that mommy take me over to Good Sam and even called ahead so that the nurses knew I was coming. We spent the afternoon in the ER and they did all kinds of horrible things to me! First, I had a chest x-ray and even though mom put on a lead vest and went in with me, there was no consoling me. I was still reeling from the chest x-ray when they decided to insert an IV. Mommy was most upset about the IV because she had a bad experience with an IV when she was close to my age. Fortunately, the nurses did a great job with the IV and I think my crying was more traumatic than anything. I was thinking that I was done with all the poking and prodding and then someone else came in and put in a catheter so that they could get a urine sample. I hated that almost as much as the IV! And just when I thought I couldn't take any more, they decided that they needed to do bloodwork. THAT was no fun at all. It took a long time to find a vein, and they spent quite awhile poking around until they got what they needed. Fortunately, Nona JoAnn, Uncle Ron and Aunt Julie came to see mommy and I in the ER, so that helped a lot.

In the early afternoon, we found out that I had a bladder/kidney infection and the ER doctor informed us by saying "welcome to the hospital". Yup, that's right--I had my first (and hopefully only) hospital stay. Daddy came home from hunting (thanks to Margaret's backroad maneuvering) and brought a couple of my favorite toys from home. We found out that I would have to spend a minimum of 3 days at Good Sam on IV antibiotics and my mom and dad were so scared. They were so happy to be able to stay with me at the hospital and I was lucky to have a bunch of visitors come and play with me.

Even though I was feeling pretty awful by Saturday night, I did start to get better and was lucky enough to go home late on Tuesday night. Mommy promised that she would give more info about my infection and treatment in another blog update, but I told her that I wanted to share some pictures from my hospital stay.

Hooked up to my IV and pulse monitor and hanging out in my hospital crib. Everyone agreed that the crib at the hospital was very sad looking. I was so happy to come home to my very own bed at home!Nona JoAnn was trying to get me to play with Sophie (my giraffe), but I was more interested in her Starbucks cup!The infection made me really sleepy and cranky. I was stuck in the corner of my hospital room because I was hooked up from both my hand and my foot. It was tough not to be able to go out and about--I love to know what's going on at all times.Here's a picture with all my Mello Aunties. I was starting to feel better at this point.And here's one of mommy and I. Daddy took this picture of the two of us when I started to feel better and was back to my normal smiley self.

Love Samantha