Update on the boys
James has been growing stronger and stronger, and
happier, every day. He can now not only roll over on his own, but he can prop
himself up on his stomach and sort of push himself around. He can sort of get
up on his hands and knees, so soon he'll be crawling. He still seems happy at
daycare, and Frances seems rather attached to him. Of course, he's teething
now, which is interfering with his
sleep.
William has been ultrasensitive
recently, crying at almost any provocation. I'm sure part of the reason is that
Mommy and I are being more impatient with him and yelling at him more than we
should, so I've also tried to compensate by being ultra-affectionate with him.
Maybe it's confusing the issues. Also, Heather has been traveling almost
weekly, which puts a lot of pressure on the
family.
Went to Disneyland this past
weekend, and I made the mistake of trying to get William on Pirates after
dragging him onto Haunted Mansion. He had a meltdown, so we went home after
lunch. This weekend, we'll go to My Gym (first formal class that we've paid
for), and we'll try Disneyland
again.
Bessie is wonderful, as usual,
though she threw up on the carpet
again.
-----
I've
been seeing Dr. Smith for the past few weeks to try to nail down why I've been
having fevers each month (except this past October). The latest blood tests
show that my liver enzymes have returned to normal, but my lymphocytes are still
low-normal (1296, up from ~1000 in August), my neutraphils are low-normal (1980,
down from 3700 in August), and my overall white-cell count is below-normal. Dr.
Smith notes that the labs give very rough estimates of what is normal, so my
results weren't flagged by the lab, but he goes with older, more finely-graded
scales that include low-normal, low,
etc.
Also, my ANA test (antinuclear
antibody) showed up slightly elevated at 3.7 (1.0 is normal), so he'd like to
order a lupus panel to see if there's an autoimmune basis for my fevers.
Perhaps it's some form of lupus -- an autoimmune disorder in which the immune
system attacks tissues, like the liver, the kidneys, or even the
skin.
Anyway, bottom line is that I'm
going to pick up another order for a blood test soon.
Posted: Thu - November 3, 2005 at 02:26 PM