Giardia it is.

It has taken me about a week to cool off before I could write this post. And by the time I finish you will understand why I have been so angry. So let me just start off from the beginning, which is about 7 weeks ago.

Elem has been having about 5-6 full diarrhea diapers a day for the last 6 weeks as of last Friday. It all started back when I switched him from formula to milk. And I thought maybe it was the whole milk that had upset his stomach. Then I switched him to Soy milk, thinking that maybe that would help. I personally do not ever drink any kind of milk, because it makes me feel yuck! I don't know that I am allergic to it per say, but it doesn't settle well with me at all, so I thought maybe it was having the same affect on Elem. After going to Soy I gave him another week to see if it would finally settle him down. After another full week of diarrhea and a decrease in his appetite as well as major changes in his attitude, I made a doctors appointment, hoping that someone could give me some answers and tell me what was wrong with my baby!

All while Elem is sick, mommy is also deathly sick with the same thing...which is crazy, because we all know how hard it is to care for your self when you are sick and much less care for an infant who is feeling even worse than you are! Then add on top of that, daddy was sick, Aunt Ali was sick, Poppa got it, several teachers from my child care were sick, and several kids-from toddlers to school age were sick as well Uncle Chad and Spoon got it too-they had been swimming with us on the 4th. So I started thinking that it couldn't be the milk-it HAD to be something else.

Here were the symptoms= diarrhea, all day, no stopping it, not fun at all. Awful stomach cramps right below your ribs in the middle. Almost like it stopped you dead in your track and made you tear up it hurt so bad. Nausea, on and off, vomiting, and then of course tiredness and just overall yuck! Now those were things I, a grown adult was experiencing, so I cant even tell you the pain my kid was feeling, which is where the anger starts with me. I can handle feeling sick and taking medication, and grinning and bearing it, but when it comes to my kid, you better figure out what the deal is and what is wrong with him, because he is just a little thing. He cant even tell me what is wrong.

So like I said, I made a doctors appointment and Seth took him in, by this time it had been 3 and 1/2 weeks. Doc checks him out, and says there has been several children in and out with a bug and that it is most likely a virus. So he gives Elem some soy formula and tells us to put him back on that, and then to bring in a stool sample the next morning so they can send it off for testing. The next morning, I get the samples(which was so grose it even made me sick) :) and took them into the doc. They sent them off and then it was just the waiting game. All along we are all getting sicker and sicker sometimes it would go away for a day or two and then come right back, etc. My little baby was so sick, and tired, and angry, and throwing fits, and just miserable and I had no idea when was even going on in his little body because all he could do was cry and scream and hit things cause he cant say anything! It was pure hell. For sure the hardest thing Seth and I have had to deal with so far as parents.

Finally the next week, I cant wait for the results so I cam calling and calling, and the nurse calls me back and says we have one result back, and he is negative for Rotovirus. One down, about a million to go. About 3 days later, as I have continued to call and call, they finally say okay yes we have the results but I have to get a nurse to call you back. So the nurse calls me back and her exact words, "yes we have the results and Elem tested negative for everything". Everything?? Are you serious, what a relief!

She continued to tell me that it must be a virus that he just cant kick and to put him on bland foods and reduce the milk intake. So I do. And another week goes by and it does not good. So I call back, and ask again, what can I do, my kid is still sick and this has now been 5 weeks of this. HE is obviously sicker than we think and we do not know what to do. Still same answer, it must be a virus, take him off milk and only potatoes, rice, bread, things like that. So I do it. I am getting angrier by the minute and my kid is sooo fussy and sick I can see the pain in his eyes and he is not acting like the loving Elem Zane that we know.
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Last weekend I was supposed to go to Memphis to visit my mom and sister and Wyatt. Before I was going to leave, Seths mom was going to take Elem to the doc one last time for me just to see if there was anything else that I could do for him. Luckily she called one of her best friends who works at the doctors office where we take Elem, and spoke with her and asked her to check it out and look at his file for us. She gets out his file and says, well it says right here that he tested positive for GIARDIA about 2 weeks ago!!!!!!!!! ANd we told you. Uhm no NO ONE told me that! They told me the exact opposite. So Phyllis calls me and the rest is history.

I was irate to say the least. Some stupid nurse didn't read the results correct, and couldn't click over to page 2 to see that my kid had a damn parasite in his small intestine. Are you kidding me? I have been calling and calling them and taking him in and pestering them to help me find an answer and every time I called they got out his chart and it never rang a bell that maybe no one told me he had this???Ohhh it was so awful. They immediately called in his prescription and I picked it up within minutes.



And that is it, my baby has been so sick and all it took was one person not reading his results correctly to prolong his illness and the illnesses of about 20 people. If you are not sure of what Giardia is, check this link out:
Giardia

It is disgusting. So contagious and easily spread through water, which is our entire families most favorite thing to do, and one thing I continued to let my son do while he was sick, because I had no idea he had something that was passed via water. He swam at school with the kids, he swam at the lake, at grammy and poppas, everywhere! Which in the end means that we passed it along and had no idea!

I know I got to let it go, but I just cant get over the fact that by human error in reading, my kid has been suffering. I have been suffering. ANd all it took was the nurse to read every page thoroughly. So its over now, and although he still doesn't seem to be totally rid of it, things are looking up. I will keep everyone posted on his situation. All in all it could have been worse, I just hate to think what would have happened if he would have had something even worse, and they would have given us the wrong results. SO I am thankful it was only this parasite thing. The doctor did call and apologize on behalf of his nurse and the staff and let us know in all his years of practicing medicine he had only seen giardia once before in a child this young, so I guess they really werent expecting the results to come back the way they did. I am just glad the whole thing is almost over. It takes everything out of me just talking about it!