Riana turns one today and I am amazed on how fast her first year went by. I distinctly remember the day she was born and it feels like yesterday. Since then, life’s been full of joy and a lot of hard work. With each passing day, I grow fonder of her. I wish her a very happy birthday. I look forward to another year of craziness and fun. Oh yeah!
Cheers
It’s been a difficult winter for my daughter Riana. In the past four months, she’s hardly gotten a break from various illnesses. She’s had everything from common cold and cough to high grade fever, laryngitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, recurring conjunctivitis, ear infection and stomach flu! Right now she is suffering from a stomach bug that is causing her to vomit and have diarrhea. After spending six hours at the Emergency Room last Tuesday night and getting her three bags of Saline and Dextrose, I was very hopeful that her appetite would return and once again she’ll bounce back to usual eating habits. It has been three days now and she is still completely uninterested in having any fluids. On an average, her total intake in a 24 hour period is about 7 oz! She’s already lost close to 4 lbs!
Giving Riana bath three times a day and doing four loads of laundry each day is indeed frustrating. But, what is more frustrating is the response we get from the nurses when we call the emergency line. Every time we call indicating that our daughter is dehydrated and just not interested in taking fluids, we get the standard response and that is to try our absolute best. We’ve tried it all… We’ve tried the bottle, the sippy cup, spoon, dropper, even a medicine syringe. We’ve tried forcing milk into her but it comes right out. We’ve tried Pedialyte, water, juice, water melon, popsicle, regular formula, soy formula, anti-diarrheal formula and nothing seems to work. Today, Ashwin took her back to the Acton Medical to be seen by her Pediatrician, Dr. Christopher Cooper, who is a very good Pediatrician. I really like the facility. The doctors promptly reply to all your emails and concerns. As much as I understand that there isn’t much they can do other than rehydrate her through IV, it is still disappointing and frustrating. It is hard to see your 11 month old baby being poked several times with needles. Unfortunately, it is a stomach flu which needs to run its course. There is no medicine to get rid of the virus. It can take from two to four weeks! On top of this, she also has cold, cough and double ear infection right now. All at the same time…
Riana’s first birthday is on Tuesday, March 4, and I hope she has a nice day. Hopefully she’ll get better by then. At this point, we feel very helpless. There is nothing we can do to help her. She’s had more than her share of illnesses this winter. My only hope is that she comes out of this 100% and that none of these will have long term consequences on her health.
For now… we are taking it one day at a time…
Riana is on par with other babies of her age as far as developmental milestones are concerned. She began rolling over at 4 months, started eating solid foods at 5 months, began sitting up without support at 6.5 months, started mastering her crawling skills at 7.5 months. Now at 9 months, she can stand up and has figured out how to climb stairs. She can only climb as many as 2 or 3 steps but it is a big achievement for her. She know how to pull herself up to a standing position using various kinds of support. Some of the more interesting supports that she uses is a 2 year old kid and a small dog at her daycare! She is now starting to feed herself simple finger foods such as baby cereal and toast.
So why do I think she is a child prodigy? Well, amongst all her skills are very good computer skills. Ashwin and I have let Riana type on our computers several times. She loves the keyboards. She has done some things that have amazed both of us. She has, not once but twice, inserted date and time stamp into Notepad. That cant be a fluke… She has managed to launch the help menu and find tool in Notepad. In Firefox, she has decreased the font size without using the mouse wheel, she has opened home page in existing window, opened a new tabbed window, opened a information box indicating the window size. In Picasa, she has zoomed into a picture and deleted a picture. What’s next?
Perhaps she is not a baby prodigy. She simply has our genes! 
I am yet to find out the shortcut to insert date and time in Notepad. I think I will do that after posting this article.
It is great to see her do so well but at the same time, she is terror. She is a little devil who likes to get into trouble. We’ve tried to baby proof the house but she is now using the drawer hardware as support to stand up. And oh, did I forget to mention that she is a drama queen. Why, of course! As I said earlier… She has my genes!
For all her latest pictures and videos, please log into my gallery.
Cheers.
Wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. For those who celebrate Chanukah, Happy Chanukah and for others who just want to enjoy the spirit of the holiday season, wish you a very happy and bright Holiday season…
Cheers.
Going through surgery was my last resort and 2 weeks after the surgery, I did in fact have a significant improvement. I was finally happy and was anticipating a painfree hand. However, at my 2 week post-op visit, I got my stitches removed and soon things began to get worse. A few days later, I started noticing a bump and pain along my thumb and wrist. I didn’t think much of it until it began to progressively get worse. Today, I saw my doctor for what looks like tremendous amount of swelling and hardening around the incision site. I have limited flexibility due to the hardening and tightening of my tissues. I can feel the resistance when I try to move my thumb. Once again I am in excruciating pain. The doctor said it was due to scarred tissue and is often caused when the injury does not heal properly. This is called the “peak effect”. In my case, the post surgical healing process is causing the internal scarring of the soft tissues. I have been prescribed another regimen of oral steroids to get the inflammation in control and to aid faster recovery. Let us hope this works. If it does not, I have to prepare myself for yet another steroidal injection that will be administered directly into my scarred tissue. There is no guarantee that it will completely heal. I may need weeks of physical therapy, which I am not looking forward to. I am going to try to stay optimistic although it is difficult when your hand is stubborn and does not want to heal. I hope that this so called “peak effect” will subside soon. I don’t want to train myself to live with pain. Never…
I think the perfect gift for Riana this season would be a baby hair trimmer. Born in March, she is only 9 months old and has already had two hair cuts at the salon; three if you want to count the one I attempted. There seems to be a big selection of baby hair clippers online but I wonder if I have the necessary skills to be a Do It Yourself mom. I gave it a try with the scissors and needless to say that I failed miserably.
On the second thought, I thought perhaps the perfect gift for her this season would be to get her some wonderful hand made hair clips. So, now Riana will get some beautiful handmade clips along with some other surprises! As far as the haircuts are concerned, I think I will save that job for the hair stylists.
My husband and I are enjoying every bit of Riana. From her messy feedings, to her dirty diapers. From her crawling around the entire house to her trying to stand up on her own. We are enjoying her frowns just as much as we enjoy her smiles. It is difficult to imagine a life withour her. She brings immense happiness and satisfaction to our lives. We didn’t know what we were missing until we had her.
As first time parents, we couldn’t ask for a happier baby. She takes after Ashwin in terms of her calm behavior.
Lately though things have been especially difficult for both Ashwin and I. She got sick with a fever of 102 degrees that would not respond to Infant Tylenol. We spent the night of Halloween in the Pediatric Urgent Care in Worcester. What was more difficult was to see my 8 month old go through the torture of various exams. The staff was not equiped to handle a baby. After three failed attempts to insert the catheter, they asked that we get the blood drawn until a more experienced nurse started her shift. They poked her several times to draw her blood. Again, after three trials, I was done with them. They somehow managed to draw a little blood from her forefinger. It was not enough to run all the tests but just enough to run some basic blood counts. Needless to say, her WBC was very high. Riana threw up that morning but other than that, she had no symptoms of cold or flu. A WBC of 27,000 is unusually high for a viral infection so they suspected it was a bacterial infection and wanted to start the appropriate treatment. Riana received two antibiotic shots that day. The next day, we visited Fallon clinic in Leominster for her followup appointment. She got two more shots that day and felt great the following day.
She seemed well for the next week and then got a nasty cold. It was difficult to see her struggle to drink her formula while trying to breathe. We spent that week using the saline drops and nasal aspirator just trying to make her feel comfortable. She slept in her bouncer because the only way to keep her from getting congested was to keep her head elevated. Then finally, last Thursday, she developed a mild fever again along with really bad cough. She was wheezing and coughing a lot. After being seen by a new Pediatrician at the Acton Medical Center, she was diagnosed with Bronchitis. She just finished her five day antibiotic treatment and is feeling much better now. She still has residual cough.
Despite being so sick, Riana was never fussy and was playful and happy for the most part. Now that is what I call a really happy baby. It is such a bliss to have her in our lives.
As much as I realize that this is part of growing up, my heart still aches to see her sick. I feel miserable, helpless and frustrated. I remember getting very angry at the staff but there was nothing I could do. I am glad I finally found a good Pediatric facility.
It is fun to see her grow and reach her milestones. She is 20 lbs and 30 inches. She likes to immitate us and show off her newly acquired skills. She has mastered crawling and she finds it funny when we have to chase her. She likes to talk a lot although it still doesn’t make much sense. She has repeated the word “Hello” after us a few times. I can not wait for her to say Mama and Dada.
These are the joys and sorrows of parenthood… and I hope everyone gets to experience it at least once…
Cheers.
Going under the knife… fear free…
I have always been afraid of surgeries. Few years ago when I was in college, I got into an accident and the doctors said that I would need about 12-15 stitches for my injuries. I chose to heal slowly and scar instead of have someone sew me with a needle. Then, when it was time for my Dental surgery to get my wisdom teeth pulled out, I was terrified. I asked them to put me under general anesthesia because I did not want to be conscious knowing that I am being operated upon, regardless of how trivial this procedure was. When I got pregnant last year, my biggest scare was what if I needed a C-section? I knew I could never get prepared for it. I was extremely anxious as my due date approached. Thankfully, I had my baby naturally and did not need a C-section after all. I felt like a winner. However, I did require a few stitches. It wasn’t as bad as I had imagined and I was pain free in a week’s time.
Many of you are already aware of my battle with the hand pain due to De’Quervain’s tendonitis that I developed post-partum. After going to a bunch of doctors, corticosteroid injections, splinting and physical therapy, I still had no relief. The pain got worse over time so my doctor decided to do an X-ray which showed misaligned ligaments and an MRI of my wrist confirmed severe damage to my tendons. I have thinning and severe atrophy of my hand tendons, a one centimeter cyst and inflammation. What does this mean? It means that my only option is to go with Hand Surgery. Once again, I am faced with a difficult situation except this time; it is not a difficult choice to make. I know if I want to be pain free, I have to get this surgery done. I am not afraid of going under the knife. I am actually looking forward to my surgery which is scheduled for Nov 21, the day before Thanksgiving.
Wish me luck. I am counting on this surgery to fix my hand problem. Hopefully after this, the pain will be gone for good…
Is it the quality of shows or the quality of audience that we should question
In the recent years I have noticed a marked improvement in the quality of television shows. However, it is disappointing to see a lot of nice shows like Studio 60 on Sunset Strip being canceled year after year. I moved to the US four years ago. When I first came here, I had nothing to do. So in order to keep myself entertained, I would play computer games or sit and watch television with my grandmother-in-law who would wait anxiously every afternoon to watch an episode of Matlock. My father-in-law has a vast collection of movies and TV shows of yesteryears. I began watching a lot of old shows including the Honeymooners and I love Lucy. I immediately got captivated by to these shows and I could sit there and watch it for hours. I realized that though simple, the shows from the past were really fun to watch. Then my husband introduced me to a bunch of nice shows including CSI and West Wing. He also had a collection of Sports Night which was fun to watch but I heard that it was one of the shows that only lasted a season. For comedy, I would watch Friends, Simpsons and Mad about you. I try not to restrict myself to one particular kind of show. I like variety although I am not a big fan of reality shows like the Survivor and American Idol. American Idol has it’s moments but after a while, it is saturating. Today there are over a hundred channels to watch but only a handful of them broadcast good quality shows. It is not hard to find reality TV, game shows, Hollywood shows, adult soap operas and nighttime dramas. I watch TV every evening before going to bed and among my favorite shows are 60 minutes, Cold case, CSI, Criminal Minds, House, Bones, Cane and CSI: NY. I like to watch drama and thriller. I also like to watch football especially when the Pats are playing. I watch news occasionally though the quality of news that you get from the TV is atrocious. More than 95% of the news is filled with negative information and it brings negative thoughts to our minds. Sadly, this is the kind of news our audience likes to see and hear.
Why is that a vast majority of audience watch dumb shows like The Office and Desperate Housewives? I remember the hype for when they were to broadcast the pilot episode of Office. After having seen the movie Office Space and really liking it, I decided to give this a try but to my disappointment, it was really boring and in some ways an annoying show to watch. A better comedic break would be The Family Guy. I had stereotyped all nighttime dramas to be full of crap until now. One of the new fall shows from this season called Cane casting Jimmy Smits is a nighttime drama and is a really nice show to watch. It is a story about a Cuban-American family running rum and sugarcane business in
I am excited to see this positive trend where there is variety and quality. Although after seeing a lot of great shows like Studio 60 on Sunset Strip, In Justice and Standoff being canceled, I don’t know if next year, we will have these wonderful shows to watch. Let us hope that we continue to move in the right direction and that more and more people start watching these wonderful shows.
Cheers
I started working for Wyman-Gordon recently as a Network Engineer. I really enjoy my new position. It’s a very challenging position and gives me the ability to get exposed to other areas of Engineering such as Industrial Automation and Robotics. It is a critical position because I am responsible for the plant’s network infrastructure which runs the 35 million dollar Press machines. I especially like my short commute to work. It allows me to spend more time with my daughter.
It is a very different environment. I have to wear my safety shoes and glasses when I am out in the shop. Wyman-Gordon is a metals forgings company. We supply materials to all GE and Rolls-Royce Engines and virtually every commercial plane including the Boeing 747 and Dreamliner has our parts. Wyman-Gordon is a part of PCC, Precision Castparts Corp.
It is a great company to work for. I am enjoying the job. I will post some pictures shortly.