The last two weeks have been crazy. The night of Halloween Luke started spitting up here and there; it wasn't much so I didn't think much of it. Four days after that he would be sitting there eating and just open his mouth to allow the waterfall of milk to come up and run out. This slightly concerned me and so I started talking to people...and was told multiple times to go off or limit my dairy intake. I did but things kept getting worse. The only thing we could do was rub his tummy and abdomen to help move things along.
Tuesday morning Alex did his tummy massage and then I was able to feed, burp, and put him down for a nap. When he woke up He seemed rather lethargic but hungry. I fed him a little and then tried to burp him but all he would do is scream. Alex took him and tried to help but nothing seemed to be working. I got Alex a bottle and put some of the colic tablets in it. He fed it to him but it ALL came back up. I got on the phone to see if Luke's new doctor had any cancellations because his tummy was bulging like a balloon and pushing on his ribs. She moved our appointment to Wednesday and then transferred me to an advice nurse. I described his symptoms and she told me to get him to the ER so they could check for a possible blockage in his digestive tract. Okay so now we're rushing around the house and I'm almost in tears. I have no clue what’s really wrong but at that point and all I could think about was that I'd done something or rather not done something and now he was having problems.
When we got to the ER we signed in and waited a short time. The check in nurse from the pediatric ER section came and got us. Good news, he's still gaining weight. After she took his measurements they took us back into the actual pediatric section of the ER. We got into our room and I sat down on the bed with him swaddled in my arms. The doctor came in and got our info and said they would like to do a couple x-rays and an ultrasound to see if there was anything in his digestive track that was blocking him up. They also wanted to make sure he didn't have pyloric stenosis. The doctor left the room. It had been hours since either of us had eaten so Alex went to find some food. In the mean time the tech came in and took Luke and me over to do some x-rays. First they tried to make him sit on this hard plastic thing and close this clear tube around him. He wasn't going for it so they put me in one of the jackets and had me hold him on his side on a table so they could get a back shot. Then we moved to the other table and I held him so they could get a tummy shot. After that was all done he puked all over the x-ray table. We wrapped him in his blanket and took him back to our room. Alex was sitting there waiting for us. It seemed like forever before the doctor came back in and said that he wanted to put an IV in him since he wasn't keeping anything down. Neither of us liked the idea. We knew he would be extremely unhappy afterwards and wouldn’t want anything to do with the ultrasound so we convinced them to do the ultrasound first.
When the tech came in to do the ultrasound we laid Luke on the bed beside me and I helped hold him. It felt like forever but they had to make sure that his digestive track was clear. Once they had looked at all that they looked at his pylorus to make sure that it was functioning properly and wasn’t swollen. After the tech was done they came in and put an IV in the back of his hand. I really had a hard time not crying…if I didn’t like it in the back of my hand why would my son? He didn’t like it in any way but the doctor said he had to have something to keep him hydrated. Once they were done I swaddled him in my arms so he wouldn’t pull on the IV while they had it hooked up. After over three hours of being down in the pediatric ER they told us since they couldn’t find anything wrong they wanted to keep him to watch him. They moved us up to the actual pediatric department where we had a wonderful nurse come in and take care of us. We also had a great pediatrician who talked to us about different things that could have caused the buildup of all the gas in his tummy and intestines. She told me that she didn’t want me going without dairy just yet; if we needed to we could run tests to see if he has a milk allergy. Throughout the night Stacy (our nurse) would come in and check on him so Alex and I could sleep. I did have to get up and feed him but he seemed to start keeping things down a little better even though his tummy was still bloated. The next morning we ended up having a nurse that was not gentle with him in any way. If it was up to me she’d been fired right there on the spot. We also ended up with a pediatrician that looked younger than Alex. He was not confident and extremely wishy washy when we’d ask him a question. We had the appointment with Luke’s new pediatrician up in Battle Ground. When the ped at the hospital said that we had two options, we either stay one more night or we have Dr. Rivera look at him and keep an eye on him we jumped on the leaving part.
We came home and got cleaned up before taking him over. Dr. Rivera looked at him and said too did not suggest going off dairy just because and that we could run test later if other things didn’t work. He said he wanted us back on Friday for a weight check and we would go from there since he had been able to keep more food down now.
We went back on Friday and he said he had bad and good news; the good news was that he hadn’t lost any weight, the bad news was that he hadn’t gained ANY in two days. He said that it’s looking like slight acid reflux and prescribed him some baby zantac. Since then he has been doing a bit better. He is still slightly spitty but he isn’t projectile vomiting anymore which I am grateful for. He has developed a fear of being left along after he’s had milk come up his nose and not being able to breathe till we flip him over. Because of him having a hard time he’s been sleeping with us (I don’t like this at all). We are working on getting him to sleep back in his own bed and he does well some nights. I’m sorry that we haven’t gotten around to talking to everyone about what’s been going on. He has been our top priority in the last two weeks. I’m grateful to finally see him sleeping better, it’s given me a moment to blog (okay this really has taken me a few days) and clean! Thanks for everyone’s patience with us, it’s been quite the journey!
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