Our trip to UCLA

I have been so exhausted from yesterday that I've hardly done anything since we got back. Here's my later-than-planned update.

We left at 6:30 AM and drove down to LA. Thankfully, most of the trip we didn't have any traffic and it was only the last 20 miles or so that we did experience some slow stop and go. Since we left really early, it didn't stress us out and we arrived at 9:30, 30 minutes early for our appt. Jonah wasn't with us, he spent the night at Raymond's parents' house. I think Nathan actually liked the one on one attention he got from us.

The nurse called us in the exam room right around 10, but then we ended up waiting over an hour before the Dr. came in. She arrived and introduced herself and started asking questions, got his medical history, etc. Since Nathan has always been healthy and hasn't even had trouble while dealing with MRSA, she didn't want to run a bunch of tests for auto-immune disorders. We brought a few pictures and showed them to her. She basically said that I would need to be "neurotic" about cleaning whenever he has an infection and clean all of his toys with bleach. I don't even know how to even begin doing that. Anyway, after examining Nathan and not seeing any active spots, she said we could discontinue the antibiotic he has been on for the last 3 weeks. She was going to write a prescription for a nasal gel (the one Kourtni told me about) that she wants both of the boys to use for a few days to hopefully kill any colonies of the bacteria. She said she was going to have another doctor come in and talk with us and then left the room.

I was a little annoyed and frowned at Raymond, muttering about if we drove all the way here and all we'd be told is "clean your house" I was not going to be happy. After waiting a while longer, she came back with the other doctor (neither of these doctors were the ones I was told we were scheduled to see so I don't know what happened with that) and they had discussed Nathan's case. The new doctor said she'd actually rather have Nathan stay on a lower dose of his current antibiotic, taking only 1 dose a day instead of 2, and do that for prophylactic purposes for 6 months. If he develops any more bumps in that time period, we are to call our local doctor and take him in because it will mean the antibiotic is no longer working and we need something else.

We don't need to go back to UCLA unless we start having problems again. I am grateful that Nathan has never seemed bothered by these infections and it has never been super serious or life-threatening.

The doctors are going to have a booklet mailed to us on the best ways to erradicate MRSA and how to treat it. Hopefully it will be some good information. I'll be doing a lot of cleaning and disinfecting around the house just in case (anyone know the best way to clean toys?!) and hopefully if any germs are left they should die off before Nathan is off his antibiotic. We do have the nasal gel and will be using that for a few days.

I can't think of anything else important that happened at the doctor's office. We left around 12:15 PM and headed toward Valencia where we stopped for lunch. Nathan was really good for most of the trip. He was pefect on the way down and got cranky only during the last part of the trip home. He was really tired but having a hard time falling asleep.

We picked up Jonah and got home around 3:30 PM. It was a very long day for all of us. I didn't even drive at all but I was so tired I pretty much laid around and was lazy the rest of the day. Today is not much better.

Here are some pictures of my cutie at lunch. He was in a very silly mood, as you're about to see!





Making silly faces!