the measles that wasn't

Last week all three boys were sick (Paul, Isaac and Noah). On Sunday Isaac had been off his food but there's nothing really remarkable about that so I'd not taken any notice, but when I changed his nappy I noticed he was really hot and had a terrible nappy rash which I then realised extended all the way up his trunk.
He got worse through Monday, ate nothing and hardly drank and we started looking up measles on various websites as that was what his rash resembled. On Tuesday Noah woke up with severe earache and a temperature and wouldn't eat and Isaac was so hot and lethargic that I skipped going to uni and phoned the GP. However by then Paul had chatted to the lab staff at the hospital who said there was measles going around so we canceled the GP appt not wanting to infect anyone there and decided Isaac had measles - a bit odd as he'd been fully vaccinated.

Paul did his clinic on Tuesday afternoon feeling rather unwell and then came home to bed.

Isaac improved for the better in the middle of the night climbing into our bed at 2am and constantly signing banana until i brought him downstairs and he ate his first food for 3 1/2 days.

Next day Noah came out in the same rash but was not so unwell as Isaac had been - we thought this was odd as he too had been vaccinated but as they have DS they are always a bit immunosuppressed so maybe the vaccine hadn't taken properly.

By Friday everyone seemed a bit better so I dared to go to my lecture at uni leaving Paul in bed and the boys in front of the TV.

I got a text from Paul saying he thought he had Koplick spots in his mouth - these occur before the rash of measles - so as he was in contact with so many immunosuppressed leukaemia patients while he was feeling unwell at his clinic, he thought he shoudl see the GP to see if it really was measles so the hospital would know if his patients needed immunoglobulin.

Although he wasn't convinced it was measles, Isaac fulfilled the reporting criteria so the GP phoned public health who said the boys had to wear masks and get blood serology test done, then Paul had to put himself in isolation until the results came back. The infectious disease unit at the hospital had to be informed

Wearing masks was a good way to get quick attention at the laboratory, all very exciting

Paul got Monday off work feeling very guilty as by then he had recovered without any rash.

Results came back negative, so not measles just a nasty measles like virus and now we're getting back to normal but with two much thinner than usual boys.

cold school holidays

We're into the second week of school holidays and have just spent a weekend of not leaving the house where only Noah and I were here for meals.
I think that is a record for the smallest family size - just me Noah and Isaac (with Isaac only eating weetbix and ice-cream cones!) Paul is at a conference in Japan (and has bought me an Ipad 2 duty free as my late birthday present - this has made both me and Noah very excited - Noah as he will be able to use the current ipad much more and we will use it for home school stories for Isaac) and lily and Hannah were at various parties and sleep-overs.
It may snow in Auckland today - first time since 1939 and certainly felt extremely cold as I walked along the river to massey with 4 layers, jumper, cardigan, leather jacket and cagoule plus scarf tied round my ears and gloves - brings back strong memories of UK!
It's working quite well having babysitters for the three days I'm at Massey because they tend to play with the kids More than me so the kids love it and I like it as it stops us getting on top of each other too much.
Isaac is developing still , he can jump now with both feet off the ground and chooses to do this to a CD of Susan Boyle, he even signed music and pointed to the CD player while singing to get me to understand what he wanted!

Lily cataract surgery, Isaac eating

This is my week of holiday from uni, as exams and even my between semesters contact course have finished. Hopefully I will feel more relaxed about study next semester as I have even more papers then. I'm taking "bicultural perspectives on psychology" which hopefully will give me some idea of Maori culture, also "forensic Psychology" and "individual differences" plus finishing the second half of the brain and behaviour paper
Anyway this holiday week I get to have three visits to the hospital with children.
Today's visit has come and gone, with Lily having cataract surgery. We got there at 7am Lily had her general anaesthetic (they said they were happy to operate under local as is usual for cataracts but she said no) charmed the staff, so that a pharmacist considered dressing as Gregory "House" and coming to visit her, and we were out by 11.30.
She is sleeping it off now but can then play on the new playstation 2 games we bought her - she is very pleased with the pirates of the Caribbean one as she thinks with her eye patch she looks like Jack Sparrow!
Tomorrow we go back to the hospital for the patch to be taken off and then we've told Lily her vision will have improved by Midnight on Wednesday when she is going with Joe and Hannah to watch the premier of Harry Potter.

Joe has a job interview in Auckland today for a computer programmer job, he had a preliminary interview on Thurs and they wanted him back, so that must be good news.

Isaac is doing really well, for the first time ever on Saturday we bought him his own happy meal at McDonalds and he managed to eat more than half the burger most of the chips and about half the chocolate milkshake. This would have been unbelievable to us when he was tube fed and shows what progress he has made.
He was seen at clinic and had managed to put on some weight too. He now weighs 12.85kg, this is still well short of his highest weight of 13.8 kg in August 2009 (so nearly 2 years ago) which just shows how overfed he was - no wonder he was in constant pain.

On Thursday this week he has ENT clinic and I think we may push for hearing aids as he is really trying to speak now copying intonation but not words. it is very cute how he does "round and round the garden"

girls weekend

Hannah, Lily and I had a lovely weekend away in Sydney seeing Beth and James, while Paul, Noah and Isaac had a boys weekend back home - this is how we sold it to Noah!
We got some very good prices on flights from Wellington - but at horrible times - had to leave Palmy at 2.45am for the two hour journey to Wellington airport for the Saturday flight and got back to Wellington at 11.30pm last night so back home at 1.30am.
Joe was picking us up so I sent him a text saying we'd landed to which he replied "I thought it was 1am you got in not 11pm - have only just left home" luckily he was joking and was waiting for us once we got through passport control!
Lily gets so tired on these trips that we planned rest times for her, she stayed at the hotel and watched DVDs while Hannah, Beth and I went on into Sydney to Paddy's markets - and some cheap "Jimmy Choo" look alike bags, then to an ABBA exhibition at the powerhouse museum.
This was great, Beth laughed when I said "Look there's the album cover everyone has" because this really showed my age -its years since records went out. They had the costumes they wore to the Eurovision song contest and we sang along to some songs and were in tune 31% of the time!
James came into Sydney late afternoon with Lily and we all went to the show Mary Poppins. Some wonderful singing but not in the same league as Wicked which we saw when we were last there.
On Monday it was queens birthday w/e in NZ but an ordinary working day in Oz. Lily went to watch a movie with all our bags, and was the only one in the cinema while Hannah and I shopped in the MacQuarie centre.
they had an ABC shop and I managed to get a puppet teletubby which Isaac loves
We stopped in the city and had lunch with Beth, then onto the airport and home on a totally full flight, with "seat only" - no movies or food. Still its only 3 1/2 flight and was a great w/e.

Wedding videos

Before the wedding




The wedding service



After the wedding

Enjoying school holidays

We've had a good break from school and Massey so far. Beth went back to Australia on Tuesday and on Wednesday Paul had a clinic in New Plymouth so the boys and I went with him.

I was SO SO tired after the wedding and was able to have a snooze each afternoon while the boys watched a DVD at the motel.

We stayed till Good Friday and It's been the long holiday weekend since then, so we're already half way through the holidays without having to think of anything to do.

Next week we're going to the Wiggles om Wednesday. It will be the first time Isaac's been to the theatre so it will be interesting to see how he does.

Isaac is getting a lot of enjoyment out of simple things now. The photos show him sitting in a box, which he loved being pulled along in, and in the bath while on holiday where we could only just see his face peeping out above the bubbles.

Noah spends a lot of time "sorting out wires' - one of his autistic like behaviours. We have two boxes in the garage we just let him have, but he can make an incredible mess with them as he is proudly displaying in his photo!

more wedding photos