There's a Fungus Among Us

Today we got to the hospital around 10 and stayed until about 3. The day was supposed to be a grocery shop, laundry and clean the house day after we went to the hospital. This plan got interrupted thanks to thrush.  I developed mastitis earlier this week and got on antibiotics for it. I felt terrible yesterday but today I was feeling better but still very, very sore. I pump every three hours. Every. Single. Day. So, I was really irritated and confused that I got mastitis.  Pumping has become much more painful than usual and I was tweeting to some friends about it. My friend Casey mentioned that my symptoms sounded like thrush and I should try to get something specifically for the thrush. I immediately consulted Dr. Google (not a real doctor) and found symptoms to look for in both me and Henry since he is the only one who's been able to breastfeed. He wasn't in any pain but I decided to look in his mouth just to see if it looked thrush like.  There it was. The bastard that is thrush.  I asked our nurse to come look and tell me if she thought it looked like thrush.  She got her flashlight out and looked. Yep. Thrush.  She called the NNP who came, looked and confirmed...thrush. Ok fine, how do we handle thrush for Henry? Nystatin is the answer. The same Nystatin that was put on his skin a few times and possibly caused a reaction. Super.  Our NNP consulted multiple pharmacy personnel to ask if they had ever heard of an allergic reaction to Nystatin. Nobody had heard of an allergic reaction to Nystatin. It's the best and almost only medicine to clear this thrush up and we don't want it getting into his blood stream (OMFG) so we went ahead and said go with the Nystatin and just watch his mouth very closely to make sure he doesn't react.  He'll get it painted into his mouth 4 times a day for a while. I just called to check and he's not had a reaction or shown any signs anything is wrong. Whew! I'm now on 3 different drugs to clear up the storm brewing in my right breast. Mastitis and thrush bring their A game when they come to visit and the pain is no joke.  I never even thought to think of thrush when I started hurting because Henry and I have been banned from our non-nutritive feeds for almost 3 weeks now. I am so so thankful for my friend Casey for sharing her thoughts. Had she not done that I would not have looked at Henry's mouth and asked our team to check him out.  I know thrush is common in newborns, but my babies aren't normal newborns and an infection in his blood like thrush could have killed him. Hopefully we are both on the road to recovery now.

Charlie had a pretty chill day. He really enjoys sleeping in the buff and prefers someone stand vigil at his bedside AT ALL TIMES. He's a bit of a diva really. As his night nurse (and girlfriend in his eyes) says, "he's a very social baby." That he is. He likes to hold court anytime he's awake. If he's getting attention, all is calm in Charlie land but if he isn't..well buckle up because you've just wronged him and he plans to let you know.  We would love to show a picture of this but we can never catch it because taking a picture = attention, which = a happy Charlie.

Tomorrow we will be spending the bulk of the day at the hospital and Charlie and Henry's Mim (my mom) is going to visit. We have one of  our night angels back tonight as their primary nurse and two of our wonderful primaries are back tomorrow so the day is automatically off to a good start.

Here's Charlie sleeping a'la natural and Henry doing his Hannibal Lecter impression. 

(A)