Sunday, November 13, 2011

Here's how it all went down...

We've had a long week.  I've spent a lot of time thinking and wondering and trying to figure out how everything went so wrong so quickly.  I'm getting ahead of myself though.

For the past week or so, we've been struggling to get enough formula into Aidan.  It doesn't taste great, he's not old enough for flavor packets, and it's starting to seem like he's associating eating with misery.  Eating isn't interesting or fun, so he's disinterested.  The new MO is to wait until he's starving, then eat just enough not to be starving any longer.  He needs to consume 900-1100 calories/day, and we struggle to get 500 into him.

(enter pure speculation)

On Monday, we believe that Aidan accidentally ate at school.  I know, I said "accidentally ate."  My kid is notorious for scooting around on the floor while others are eating and licking up their crumbs.  And "crumbs" in an infant room can be a pretty substantial meal - on any given day, cheerios flow freely and pancakes, waffles, scrambled egg yolks, toast, and cheese are never in short supply.

(not so speculative)

Tuesday brought misery, screaming, and more misery.  Even his teachers commented that they hadn't seen him so miserable in weeks.

Wednesday, more screaming, more misery and I thought I should have his ears checked.  Because, you know, it's an easy fix.  So an hour after bedtime, we sat in the pediatrician's waiting room, wishing for ANYONE to be on late duty other than Dr. B.  But no, of course not.

Dr. B is kind of a an enormous jerk.  He disapproves of the way we are proceeding with the GI (he recommended one GI.  We went with another.).  He disapproves of feeding tubes (which we'd like to avoid but will certainly do if we need to.).  It was a very negative visit in general, but he diagnosed an early ear infection and prescribed antibiotics.

Straight to Rite Aid at 8:30 at night to fill the Rx, where the careless pharmacist mislabeled his bottle.  Thanks to some mom-vigilance, Aidan wasn't double-dosed.  Thanks a lot though, Rite Aid.  Wednesday night was screaming, screaming, and more screaming.  Refusing bottles, but screaming until he passed out.

Thursday morning brings more of the same.  He won't eat.  Won't even open his mouth.  And everyone says that when he's hungry, he'll eat.  Only, he doesn't.  Not at school.  Not at home.  Not at all.

By Friday, he's getting dehydrated.  No wet diapers.  No energy to do anything but cry himself to sleep.  I have to do something.

90 minutes we wait for the GI.  The GI, who barely looks at him, doesn't examine him, and pronounces him "fine."  He orders up an Upper GI and a Scope, and says we'll "deal with feeding" later.  He's not worried.

I just about lost my mind.  I somehow found myself in the parking lot of the Pediatrician's office, waiting for them to open from lunch.  When they did, I brought my screaming, whimpering, hungry boy in and refused to leave without help.

Two hours later, we were finally in with our very favorite nurse practitioner.  She determined pretty quickly that it was the amox that was causing the food refusal.  Specifically, the red dye in the amox.  It seems pretty obvious now that I"m reading it, but let me assure you, it wasn't super obvious to us.  Probably because it came on the heels of what we believe was an accidental fooding.

We discontinued the amox immediately, and within about 12h, he took a bottle.  12 more hours and he was happy, eating, and enjoying life again.

This week, we hope to regain the half pound that he lost last week.  We also need to get his Failure to Thrive labs done (another story for another post), and schedule his Upper GI and Scope.

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