Here we go again!

Well folks, Aaron is back at CHOP...hopefully only overnight...I'm really starting to feel like a terrible mother...they ask me, how many times has he been hospitalized before and I say twice (now thrice), not including his two weeks in the NICU...and he's only 5 months old! What's wrong now...well, he's had some pretty terrible and relentless diarrhea for 9, going on 10 days now. But he's kept his formula down, no vomiting (some increased spit up but no real vomiting), so other than cutting out fruits and veggies, we've pressed on with formula and cereal with the intention that if it wasn't better by Monday (day 11), we'd go to the peds. Friday night I had my name checked at work so if they were slow, they would call me and I would get a paid vacation day essentially. They called and I was psyched. We had a nice family dinner and Aaron hadn't been eating much all day so I was happy to stay home and try to keep him hydrated. Put him to sleep after forcing 2 ounces of formula in him (the last two of maybe 10 ounces all day...he normally take in 24-30 ounces plus two solid meals). I came downstairs and after 15 minutes or so (a time when I would normally be on my way to work and not home anymore) I heard the faintest of noises coming from the monitor...I ran upstairs, something in my mom gut told me something was wrong...and Aaron was laying in a HUGE puddle of vomit, eyes wide open and blue face and trying to breathe. I smacked his back got him to scream and yelled for help from Alex...who didn't hear me till yell 3 or 4 because he and Charlie were playing loudly.

A few things here before I continue on with the story. Had I been at work, this could have all been very bad. I don't know that Alex would have heard anything on the monitor. It was just a weird feeling that made me run up there like I did. He flops himself all over the place so little noises don't really make me run...something intervened to make sure I had off work last night. I've never been a religious person before, and don't really know if religion is where I'm going with this, but Aaron has had so many close calls since he was conceived (starting at 7 weeks gestation when they told me to go home and expect to lose the baby any day), I am becoming a much more faithful person I guess, believing in some higher intervening power that is saving our ass. On with the story now...

So several more times Aaron vomits more than is humanly possible. It's like he was manufacturing milk in his belly and spewing it. once the vomiting was over, it started coming out the other end in mass quantities. I changed my clothes more times last night...Aaron went to bed naked but got his sheets changed multiple times, and thank god we have a leather couch. He tolerated an ounce of pedialyte so we went to bed (with him in our room...he has been in the room with Charlie for several weeks now) and I knew we were heading to the peds this morning.

He was better this morning with just pedialyte but we went to the peds as he was pale and had only damp but not wet diapers and more runny crap. He had also lost a pound in two days (when we were at the GI clinic ironically enough) She sent us the CHOP's ER for dehydration evaluation and monitoring for more ALTE's (acute life threatening events). They admitted us. Probably just overnight for fluids and monitoring. It took their amazing IV team 6 tries to get an IV in him (he was pretty dehydrated, despite my efforts to keep him otherwise), he got an IV bolus and kept a decent amount of pedialyte down.

Our amazing friends and neighbors (where we were supposed to be having dinner tonight) took Charlie so Alex could bring a few things up here and so we could have "dinner" together in Aaron's room. What would we do without our friends?! Aaron is settled and sleeping. He took 4 ounces of formula (I can't tell you how many times I had to tell the nurse which formula he is on and explain that not all similac formulas are the same, there are several types and they all have different purposes...oh well)he kept it down and is sleeping on the monitor (keeping an eye out for those ALTE's...what a creepy non-chalant way of describing something so horrifying that I won't forget , probably ever!)

So we'll hopefully go home tomorrow. They think that he might have a systemic yeast infection that is attacking his whole GI tract. He has thrush again and the description of his stools that I gave them (I'll spare you all) is consistent with a yeast infection of his GI tract...yuck!


Sorry this turned into such a long wordy post. I promise that I have some adorable pics that I took the past few days that I will post once we are home (tomorrow?!). One cool thing, we are on a floor with all private rooms (although we are right across from the nurses' station which is noisy....) but each room has it's own computer! Thus the prompt update directly from CHOP! Goodnight all....