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2006-10-09 - 12.45am previous entry next entry
Update
Thanks so much for all the concern and support over Arthur with his first tummy bug. I haven't got long to update, in fact I wanted to update yesterday but didn't have the chance.
I need more prayers. Arthur is so so so ill. Friday night he started vomiting and now it's Monday night and he's still going. He has been sick 13 times so far, and I can't even count the number of times he's retched but brought nothing up. Yesterday was Sunday and Arthur was no longer keeping down sips of fluid, so we called the emergency doctor (since the GP surgeries were all closed for the weekend), and they made us bring him to the out-of-hours clinic. He was so poorly that we didn't want to move him, but they said they needed to assess him and it could be hours before anyone could do a home visit. At that point he was sort of slumped on the sofa and if we tried to pick him up and move him, he would cry and retch :( But we put the boys in the car (Matthew, Neil and I still okay at the moment, by the way) and headed to the clinic, which happened to be at our local hospital. The doctor said Arthur was dehydrated (which we knew) to about 5% (what is that?!) and she said since he was still taking some fluids and he had wet nappies, he was doing okay. But his breath smelt of pear drops, meaning ketones, which means his body had no food or drink left to burn and had started to work on its own fat cells. The by-product of that process is ketones - you can find them in urine or smell them on the breath.
Anyway, she said he needed to be rehydrated, and it might be as simple as him taking some dioralyte but if he couldn't tolerate that then he'd need to be admitted to have IV fluids :( So she sent us down the hall to the children's A&E (ER) where we saw a really lovely nurse and a paediatrician who checked Arthur out, made note of his wet nappy (he's still having those, thank goodness), took his temp (37.2, just a tiny bit raised) and looked at his ears and mouth. He doesn't have an ear infection. The paediatrician says it's gastroenteritis, and that can typically last for 5-7 DAYS, urrrgh! I never even fathomed such a bug when I was young. Stomach bugs back then all seemed to be throwing up in the night a few times, feeling grim the next day and then right as rain again. Now there are some real nasty buggers out there, it seems. How can ANYONE manage with vomiting for 5-7 days like that?! Let alone a little one not even 2 years old yet. Also he said that it's usually diarrhoea and vomiting, but Arthur doesn't have diarrhoea - I am SO grateful for that! He said Arthur may get that for the last couple of days though, so we're keeping an eye out for it starting.
Anyway. We told them we were sure Arthur wouldn't take the dioralyte but they said it was worth a try. They made some up for us and gave us a 5ml syringe, a straw, and a tiny cup, to give us a few options for trying to encourage him to take it. He had to have 5mls every 5 minutes, no more. They said his stomach wouldn't cope with more volume or frequency than that, and that might have been why he wasn't tolerating fluids at home - he might have been simply taking too much at once for his little tummy, even the little bits that he was taking.
Amazingly, after initially refusing it, Arthur ended up taking all 100mls of the dioralyte over 2 or 3 hours that we were there. He is so eager for food and drink that we have to count him down for the 5 minutes that he has to keep waiting for the next tiny amount he's allowed. He DOES vomit if he has more than 5mls though - we've found out. He kept the dioralyte down though he was retching after the last bit. So they sent us home with some more dioralyte for him to take, but he has refused it completely since then. This evening we were getting so worried about him, so Neil tried to get him to take a sip of dioralyte and Arthur threw up just from gagging on it. So that's definitely a no-no. They told us at the hospital to go back to the children's A&E if he got worse or couldn't keep fluids down again, so today I have phoned the twice with queries, to see if we should be going back in. We have got ourselves ready and packed for admission twice today, but both times they said we were doing okay at home so we didn't go in.
Today Arthur has been sick 4 times, but today is different from the other days because he is being really VIOLENTLY sick. His last couple of vomits have had a little blood in them so I called the hospital and they asked lots of questions and then told me that it was quite common when children are straining very hard to be sick, to get a little fissure in the oesophagus which can bleed a little. How AWFUL for my poor little love :(
He is lethargic and pale, and smaller than I have ever seen him look before. I mean, he's lost a lot of weight, but the main thing is just how tiny he seems to have become without the "largeness" of his energetic personality. He is still and silent nearly all the time, and in and out of sleep today. His eyes just look here and there without him moving his head, and they look so huge and dark in his poor peaked little face. His hair looks enormous on his head! I can hardly bear it. He can understand the questions, "Are you okay?", "Does your tummy hurt?" and "Do you feel sick?" and respond to them accurately with yes or no, which is a great help to us. I don't think he'd have been able to do that even a couple of weeks ago - his speech has been changing so fast lately. His tummy has been hurting him a lot today and yesterday evening. Sometimes he writhes and screams out and just gets wide scared eyes. When I hold him while his tummy is hurting, he clutches at me like he can't quite get hold of me enough, and screeches, "Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummyyyy!" It's so so heartbreakingly sad. He has started to call me Mummy all the time since he got ill, whereas before then I was "Mumma" (which I LOVED) and only once or twice had he called me Mummy. Now I'm Mummy all the time, and glad to be so! But I'll miss Mumma.
He is very anxious about being sick, not that I could blame him at ALL with how traumatic an introduction to vomiting this has been, but we're trying to help him as best we can. I am desperate for him NOT to develop a fear of vomiting like I got at only a few months older than he is now. At first we were shoving bowls and towels and all sorts under his nose when he got sick, but he got anxious about the approaching bowls/towels, and would push them away and seem scared. So then we ditched those and just made sure we lifted him into a better position (ie away from things that aren't easy to clean!), but then just the fact that we were suddenly frantically trying to lift him made him panic. So now we are letting him throw up however he happens to be. He is so weak and tired and he is no longer bothering to change his position. He cries like he's scared but we reassure him. He has thrown up on Neil twice and me once. I am doing SO so well with it all. I am WAY more concerned with Arthur now more than my own feelings about it. I'm so worried for him.
Neil is off work today. He phoned them and explained and said he just couldn't be there. He was worried in case they wouldn't accept that, but they seem to have so far. I hope they continue to, because Arthur isn't improving and I can't take care of him and Matthew on my own with him this ill. He wants me holding him all the time, and I need to be RIGHT there the instant he starts retching or vomiting, which is quite a lot. Matthew is okay. He is full of cold from Arthur's last cold. Arthur is still a bit snotty from that but it's going away. Matthew is sleeping badly at night with his congestion, but we realised we could use Karvol capsules for him from 3 months, so he's currently breathing a lot better with the stinky stuff from one of those on a tissue near his cot.
Matthew is being such a good boy. He isn't getting much from us at the moment, because we are just both of us so focused on Arthur all the time. But he lies on the mat on the floor and rolls and screeches and plays. He sits in his bouncy chair and kicks and smiles and screeches. He lies in his cot and screeches and talks. Note the consistency of the word "screeches"!! It's his latest thing, and Arthur never did noises like the ones Matthew makes, so it seems so funny to hear him - like it's his own unique Matthew thing to do! He seems to find it soooo much fun to screech and skwawk as loudly as he can. It makes him super excited and he does this huge energetic flings with his arms and legs between screeches! He has had to cry back to sleep this morning when he woke from his nap after half an hour, which I HATE, but Arthur was being sick downstairs and we were both totally occupied for a while.
Hygiene is a challenge. Obviously WE don't want to get sick, but most of all I am desperate for Matthew to avoid it. We are washing our hands like crazy. My hands have cracked and bled several times, but I just put a ton of cream on them and they recover. It's worth it anyway. I am so anxious about Matthew getting it that I'm extra fastidious about things. If I've been cuddling Arthur and I need to pick up Matthew or feed him, I go and scrub my hands and arms and change my T-shirt. We are doing a LOT of laundry. Every time a load finishes, a new one is ready to go on. We change our clothes frequently, and go through lots and lots of hand towels, bath towels, terry nappy towels, etc. every day. Now that I know what kind of a horrible bug we're dealing with, it scares me all the more that Matthew might get it, because I mean, how can a little baby even SURVIVE 5-7 days of violent vomiting and diarrhoea?! He would absolutely have to be hospitalised and hooked up to stuff. Horrible.
Even with all that, he would still be terribly ill, because there's nothing they can actually do about the vomiting - it has to just take its course. Matthew is so tiny and sooooo smiley and cheerful lately, it makes me want to cry when I look at him and think of him getting ill like Arthur is. He wouldn't do any smiling then. Arthur isn't smiling at all. It feels like forever since he was himself. I know it's only a few days but I can't explain it.... it just seems like I am already forgetting what he looks like all healthy and laughing and active in his expression. I feel like he will never be well again. Tonight I had a moment where I thought, what if he dies? I know, I know, it's a tummy bug, and bad as it is, it will pass. But you haven't SEEN him, he looks so terribly ill all the time and it scares me. It scares Neil as well. Today he was so worried about Arthur not getting dioralyte that he figured he could give him a tiny bit of biscuit (he was asking for one a lot). I kept on saying no, but in the end he went on about it so much that I said okay. And Arthur was SO thrilled to be given about 1 square cm of biscuit. He tucked into it straight away, but he hadn't even finished it before he was so violently sick that it came through his nose as well :( My poor poor Arthur. I instinctively felt SO angry at Neil for pushing and pushing to give him a biscuit when my gut had said no all the time. But he felt bad for it too. Both of us have been a bit tearful today at times while we've been sitting together, one of us holding Arthur and the other stroking his hair or holding his hand, Arthur asleep. Neil got upset when he changed Arthur's nappy for bed this evening, because he has lost so much weight and Neil said it reminded him of his dad losing all that weight before he died. I know it's not the same thing, but it upset him still.
By bedtime this evening Arthur was beginning to retch and vomit just by swallowing, even his own saliva. I don't know what to do for him. He is still managing to take small amounts of water and keep it down though. The nurse said on the phone today that if he is taking fluids and keeping them down for more than half an hour then it's okay. He is, mostly. But he's taking SUCH small amounts because he can't stomach any larger amounts. I would guess that he's had maybe 100mls all afternoon and evening. Maybe 75 to 100mls in the morning. But vomiting x4 in total. So I don't know what to think. They seem to think he's doing all he can and it will be okay. I personally don't want to go to hospital with him unless it becomes absolutely necessary, because they'll admit him and then he'll have a LOT more trauma to go through that he's already having to deal with. He'll have pain and procedures and unfamiliar surroundings, and worst of all, I will have to go home with Matthew (only one of us can stay with him on the children's ward, and certainly not Matthew) to feed him and such through the night, and he will need his mummy with him in hospital. If I somehow stay with him, he'll still need his daddy too. He has never known anything without the two of us, and this is just such a terrible time to make him go through such a separation. I could pump some milk for Matthew overnight, but I don't think I have time to prepare that, if we end up having to go in all of a sudden. I found the pump this morning and expressed 4oz (100mls) to give to Arthur in a sippy cup in case he took to that (he's refusing milk for the most part) but I have no idea where (or if we even have) the bottles and stuff are for Matthew to use. I'd need to find them and sterilise them yet. And pump enough to see him through the night! Without any clue about amounts or stuff, since I've never pumped to feed my babies before.
Shannon mentioned that milk would be a bad thing for Arthur right now, but I just wanted to respond to that to clear it up, because DAIRY is a big no-no with tummy bugs. The stomach becomes unable to absorb the proteins in cows' milk, so it's not something you should have. But human milk has no such issues. Human milk is perfect for sick babies, and my breastfeeding books tell me it's better even than dioralyte at rehydrating them and giving them added nutrients and stuff that their bodies can't get any other way while they're sick. Breast milk tends to be the only thing that sick babies can keep down, sometimes even more so than water. But I stopped offering milk to Arthur, thinking that he wasn't tolerating it, but I didn't realise that he was simply getting to large a volume and that was the only reason he was bringing it up again. I feel sad about that, and I wish I had known so I could have persevered at breastfeeding him and he might have fared way better with some small, frequent doses of Mummy-milk in him. I'm sure to be making antibodies to his bug in my milk too, so I wish he would take it. The hardest thing is gauging how much milk he's getting, and so far we are just saying he can have two sucks. That sounds like NOTHING, but if my milk is in full flow that can actually be too much for him right now. I have a strong milk let-down reflex and a lot comes out at once. I did hand-express 20mls and offered him that in bits, but he didn't want it out of a container or syringe.
This evening after we put him to bed, he seemed so uncomfortable. He grimaces a lot with his eyes closed, and moans, "Hurt" so I know his tummy is hurting him. His mouth waters a lot and he swallows loads so I know he's constantly nauseated. Neil and I lay him down on his bed and told him we were going to lay our hands on him like this, and talk to Jesus. We told him we were going to ask God to help and make him better. He just looked at us and didn't move or say anything. We laid our hands on his little body and prayed aloud to God, asking him to heal Arthur and protect Matthew and so on. We prayed for a while and Arthur just lay and watched us. I could hear him breathing and he lay perfectly still.
Arthur has woken twice while I've been typing this. He has had 3 swallows of water each time - let's hope that much will stay down. He usually has 2 swallows, but we have to stop him because he's always eager for more. Anyway, so far no vomiting since bedtime. He didn't throw up during the night last night, so I'm hoping he'll make it through again tonight, and manage some fluids in the morning. I can't imagine us getting through another day like this one - I don't think he can physically cope with it, so I imagine we'll have to go to the hospital if he doesn't improve.
It's just so awful. My heart is just breaking for him. My little boo. I just want to fix it and make him better, and I can't.
I have been feeling sick a lot the last couple of days. But I think I have given myself a nice bout of IBS with anxiety over it all, so that might be all it is. And tiredness. I am so so so so so exhaustedly tired. So anxious and stuff all the time I'm awake and looking after my little ones with all I've got. And then maybe 2 or 3 hours broken sleep each night with Arthur's wakings (Neil sleeps with him but I go in if he calls for me or I hear him being sick - we always make sure both of us are with him when he's being sick), and Matthew's very broken sleep right now with his cold. Being that tired can make me nauseous so maybe that's part of it. And because of the nausea I haven't really been eating much since I've been anxious about getting sick. So, vicious cycle, because an empty tummy that's perfectly well can feel mighty queasy! Urgh. So I'm trying to eat, but even small amounts make me feel full and sick. So it's hard. I am still anxious about catching this horrible bug, but at least the anxiety over that is made less by the all-consuming concern over Arthur's wellbeing right now. My little ones matter so so SO much more than me. Well, to me, anyway.
One lovely bit of news today that was completely unexpected - this evening I spoke to my brother on the phone and found out that he and his Sarah are expecting a baby!!!! Sarah is due May 3rd and is 10 weeks pregnant. I am SO excited!!!! My baby brother, a DADDY! I can't really believe it. But it's so wonderful. Just 11 months (not even that) younger than Matthew. I'm so happy that the boys are getting cousins on both sides very close to their own age. I'm especially excited about this baby because it will be my first blood-related niece or nephew! I have sweet little Ella for my niece, but she isn't related to me by blood, since she is Neil's sister's little one. She and Arthur and Matthew are blood-relatives though. Weird, that. Anyway, I am so excited! They have their first scan next week. Sarah is doing fine, feeling sick if she eats too much or gets too tired, but doing okay. It was a lovely window of happy excitement in my day!
I just want my little boy to get better now.
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