Tuesday, March 3, 2009

When it rains, it pours...

I hope this post isn't too depressing, but I am quite tired and a bit down, so I make no guarantees. I barely got any sleep last night. Ezra had a little trouble falling asleep last night and then once he finally did, I was too nervous about today to fall asleep right away. Then right as I was falling asleep, I heard Matthias start coughing over the baby monitor. And it was not just any cough, but a deep, barky, croup cough. So after listening to him suffer for a few minutes, I pulled him in bed with us so I could listen to him breath. That eased my mind, but didn't really help me get any sleep. And then we had to get up at 5:30 am to get Calvin to work.
After bringing Calvin to work, the day really began. Ezra had his appointment with the GI specialist today. I was nervous that they would find something seriously wrong or that they would say that there was nothing we could do and we just needed to wait it out. After answering a ton of questions on some forms and then answering the same questions from the nurse, and answering the questions again from the first doctor and then again from the second doctor, the doctors came back with a game plan.

Right now the doctors this that this is probably simply reflux. But since he is not gaining weight very well, they are concerned. So we are going to try a couple of things to try to help him keep his food down. First we will try to hold him at a 30 deg. angle and trying to keep him more on his right side. This works with gravity and his natural anatomy to try to help the food get through his stomach. We are also trying to make his feedings heavier. This means that I have to pump my breast milk and mix it with rice cereal. This should also help him gain weight, because it is adding more calories to his feedings. I am supposed to doing the pumping and adding rice for a week and if after a week, he is still spitting up really bad, then I will have to stop the breastmilk and switch him to formula thickened with rice.

On Monday, Ezra will be going in for an upper GI x-ray. He will have to drink barium. It will be interesting for sure.

After two weeks, we are going back. If he does not gain enough weight, he will be hospitalized for further testing and until he can gain enough weight. I am praying that thickening his feedings will work, because I really do not want to have him be hospitalized.

So after all that with Ezra, I had to bring Matthias to the doctor in the afternoon. He indeed has a bad case of croup. So he is now on steroids to help keep his airway open. Not only am I well known at the pediatricians' office, I am getting to be somewhat well known at the pharmacy as well. He is really tired and out of it. He fell asleep on the couch an hour before bedtime.

In good news, we finally got some pictures of Ezra smiling!




1 comment:

  1. I can completely relate to the croup. Judah is currently on steroids for the same thing. Good news is that they seem to work fast - Judah's back to sleeping through the night without coughing fits. Good luck!
    We'll be keep Ezra and the entire family in our prayers.

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