Sick Baby

Poor Lorene is sick. She went to the Dr yesterday for her 1 year check-up. She's growing fine - 21 1/2 pounds, 31 inches tall - but she has an upper respiratory infection, her ears are congested (although no infection - YET), plus she had to get two immunizations. On top of all that, the Dr. wanted to check her blood for her iron levels. The nurse couldn't get a good sample and had to prick her toe three times! Lorene was a trooper - she didn't even cry and the nurse told her she was very brave. The result came back really weird - it said Lorene has more than double the normal amount of red blood cells. The Dr. thought maybe the machine was broken and sent us to Children's for a retest - so Lorene had to have yet another stick. Again, no tears! We haven't heard back on those lab results. But per online sources, high red blood cell counts are usually caused by such things as alcoholism, drug abuse (esp. steroids) and obesity - none of which Lorene suffers from obviously. The Dr. also told me that with that elevated of a count, Lorene should be very red in appearance but if anything, she's quite pale. Anyhow, the poor baby is miserable and we're hoping she doesn't develop another ear infection!