Longing for a day of normalcy.

I have been totally MIA recently (in the blog world that is), but with good reason. My baby boy has been super sick. For a quick update, over the course of the last month, Elem has gone from steadily being sick, to worse, to even more worse, and then back to somewhat tolerable these days. For the time leading up till last week he basically continued to have 6-7 diarrhea/day. Sunday night of last week, that changed to what I would like to call as projectile vomiting. Not exactly sure if that is what it was but it was vomiting none the less. Also, let me mention that the first one was totally unexpected around midnight while I was holding him chest to chest, trying to console a fussy baby, at which point I was immersed in vomit. From my face, to my shoulders, to all over my clothes and down to couch and the floor. I have cleaned up a lot of vomit in my line of work, but this was just plain awful. And too make it worse, its like, what move do you make first? Do you try to hold the crying vomitting child even though you are both covered in it and it feels so grose to both of you. Do you put him down and take his clothes off or your clothes off first while he screams. Do you call for help (unfortunately Seth was out of town and we were home alone :( ) What do you do? I of course held him for a brief moment to calm him down form the shock of what had just happened to him and then immediately got up off the couch and put him in the floor. As he screamed I stripped us both down, wiped the puke from my face and his, got us each a drink of cold water, and tried to sooth him as much as possible. That day turned into 5 more days of vomiting, no eating, barely any drinking, and no pooping (which I believe was a result of everything coming up before it could get digested).

Starting on Monday, I began calling the GI specialty clinic at Childrens'. My hopes were to speak with someone who could point me in the right direction, as to if I should bring him in, give him something, and over all, I wanted to move his procedure (that he is having on Monday September 29th) up to Monday of this week. After multiple calls and no call back, we headed off to the ER. With Seth being out of town, Phyllis went with me to assist in the waiting and care of the little man. She is a blessing with things like this cause she is always willing to go, even if it means a lot of waiting, which it usually does. Once at the Er I proceeded to literally tell the following people, every single detail of his medical history in hopes for answers. Those told include: The nurse at the check in desk, the nurse at the next check in desk who took his temp and attempted to get his vitals, blood pressure and what not, The next lady who walked us back to our room, the pediatrician on duty in the ER, the nurse assigned to our room, and then the attending on duty. The most frustrating part to me, each person had no idea what was going on. They did not relay anything from person to person, and all kept assuming it was a stomach virus. Which every time I would respond with, well this is his 13th week of diarrhea straight and now it has turned to vomiting. They would then gasp, and give there apologies and inform me that it was not on his chart! How frustrating can one dad gum place be?? Seriously people? I am not exaggerating when I tell you my baby is sick and I have a gut feeling. Someone, anyone please listen to me.

It was almost like a waste of time. We got no where. Each and every person told us there was nothing they could do because he was not bleeding from the rectum, and because there was no blood or anything coming from the intestines. In the back of my head I wanted to be like, uhm yeah actually I did see blood, just to get someone's attention, but I didn't. I know that would be totally wrong. So we wait, and wait, and wait. For them to contact the GI doc on call, and give us the answer we expected to get. Since it is not an emergency, all we could do was call the following day. Much like I had done the day before.

And so I did. I called, and I called, and I called. All week, multiple times a day, never with a response, or any type of any sympathy for my situation. Finally on a Friday night around 5:00pm they call me back, after the whole week, and I get no info. Elem continues to be sick and get worse, and no one in the medical profession cares. I am furious. I am so angry, and if one more person tries to tell me that I am a first time mom and my kid has some kid of stomach virus, I just might flip. And if you know me very well, I dont do that. I am super calm, and very level headed especially when it comes to my head. I mean lets be serious here, nobody wants a pissed off doc going in and working on their kiddo. So we wait. And finally on Saturday the vommitting ceases. Elem finally begins eating again, after about a 3 day fast, and slowly starts getting his energy back.

In the midst of all this, I was supposed to go to my 10 year high school reunion, as well as a baby shower for one of my dearest friends. And we had to cancel on all of them For now we are putting our lives on hold till we find out what is wrong with Elem. We dont want to chance anything or chance him being around anyone who could get him sick before this procedure. Although it is no fun to miss out on those things, it is worth it, knowing that hopefully the rest and relaxation will benefit our baby boy. He started out the week pretty weak, but has become stronger as the days have gone by. He is a little fussy and is getting pretty used to being spoiled by everyone around :) Which isnt too bad of a thing. And we just cant wait till Monday to get the upper and lower GI tests done, and get him home with some answers. My greatest fear is that they will not find anything. That the tests will come back just answerless, and then we will have to start from square one. For now, I will be calm, and strong for Elem, and continue to pray for a healthy and easy procedure, and a fast and safe recovery. No one looks forward to seeing your baby put to sleep, but seeing your baby in daily agony is no fun either.

For now, that is where we stand. He is currently having about 2 diarrhea's a day, and does seem to be full of energy. Including several fits. So that sounds about right for his age huh? :) Thanks for all your kind words and happy thoughts you have been sending our way. Friday we will call the clinic and find out what time his procedure is and then he will go in on Monday morning to get ready. My mom is coming in town so that will be a good extra helping hand, and I am guessing Elem Zane will get whatever he wants for the days following. We are just hoping to hear something small that can be fixed with antibiotic and nothing to major. Ill do my best to keep everyone posted. As far as milestones, I am going to try and do those in the next day or so.