Happy Birthday to Me...

I decided to celebrate my birthday the day after my birthday this year because this is how my actual birthday went down...

Around midnight Isla started coughing and crying and coughing and crying. She coughed and cried until 6:30 when she woke up and coughed some more. She had had a cold for 3 weeks now, so I decided to take her in to walk in hours.

Somehow, despite getting up super early (for us), we walked into the Dr. at 8:40 - 10 minutes after walk-in hours closed. (Isla coughed the whole way there and then didn't cough once at the Dr. and then coughed the whole way home.) The (wonderful) receptionist got us in anyway and the Dr. was very nice and said Isla was having severe nasal allergies, but possibly had a sinus infection & that if the allergy meds didn't kick in in 3 days, call for antibiotics. This was great news because I needed to drop her off at my friend's house in the afternoon while I took Isaac to the Dr. and my friend Amanda (the mother on Isla's buddy, Michael) is expecting her 2nd baby in April, so getting sick right now would not be great for her.

We did a quick grocery stop and I fed Isla a lunch that she basically ignored and took her over to Michael and Amanda's at 12:30. I gave her a breathing treatment 1st because she was coughing so much. Isla and Michael were thrilled to see each other and Michael ran to the kitchen and dug through the cupboards to proudly offer Isla a prune. So cute! I promised Amanda that the appointment would be short and sweet and took off.

Isaac and I headed off to Children's for Isaac's upper GI x-ray. Isaac has been having the same reflux and milk / soy issues that Isla had and is still having them despite my dairy / soy free diet, so his gastroenterologist ordered an upper GI x-ray to rule out any physical anomalies. It is really routine in the GI world - a quick 20 minute video x-ray while Isaac drinks barium, to make sure everything is going where it should go and not where it shouldn't.

The x-ray went well. The Dr. had resident do the imaging and Isaac was very good, considering that he wasn't allowed to eat for 3 hours before the exam. He thought barium was just the most delicious thing and slurped it down. I got suited up in some fancy garb and helped hold him while they did the x-ray. It was crazy and amazing to see my hands holding his tiny body in x-ray form.

After a few minutes, the Dr. looked up and said, "Everything looks just fine. His x-ray is going to be normal." Then, because it is a teaching hospital, he and the resident continued the x-ray. Then the Dr. said, "Wait, go back." then, "Ok, turn him on his back...now back on his left. No, stop, let me take over please." After a few more minutes , he said, "Well, it looks like I may have spoken to soon." Then he explained that they were going to need to take more x-rays and Isaac may in fact be having surgery today, but they needed some more images before they knew for sure. Then they loaded him up with more barium. The Dr. was incredibly nice, but clearly spent most of his time talking to residents and used a bunch of anatomical words that I was not familiar with. The jist is that the barium was going the wrong way in Isaac's small intestine, which apparently is not good, but has a wide range of causes falling on various places in the "not good" spectrum.

The Dr. needed the barium to continue down his digestive tract a bit before taking more x-rays, so we were escorted to a private waiting area and a nice guy named Justin came out and asked me if I understood what was going on and "Would I like some water?" I should have asked Justin to explain everything, but at that point I didn't really want to know. I figured if it was really bad, I'd learn about it later.

I played with Isaac for a few minutes and then Justin came back out and told us that the Dr. (another Dr. W!) had called our GI and Isaac was approved for an ultrasound. We went back and by this point Ike was livid and hungry and not happy about being prodded with an ultrasound wand. He was screaming. The Dr. did the unltrasound while the sonogrpapher hooked Isaac up with more SweetEase ("Sweeties" is sugar water and it is the first thing Isaac every ate - given while they placed an IV in the NICU). Isaac was instantly calm and happy as long as I continued to dip his paci in the sugar water. We were even given some for the road!

The ultrasound was inconclusive. I called Amanda again to tell her that it was going to be even later. We did the 2nd x-ray and there still wasn't a clear picture of what was going on, so Isaac and I got to wait around some more. This time we walked around the hospital and Isaac got a lot of attention. I called Amanda again, who was feeding the kids dinner and this point and then decided to call Andrew (I hate telling people about medical issues, because then they seem real, so I had avoided calling him until now.) Andrew went over to help Amanda, since I had Isla's car seat.

Isaac's 3rd x- ray was still not 100% clear, but (THANK GOD!) ruled out need for emergency surgery. Apparently Isaac may need more imaging and possibly surgery, but at this point they really don't know, and I have know idea how serious it is, because I was so wiped out that the Dr.'s explanation is sort of a blur of relief. For now we are supposed to bring him in the the ER if he is abnormally fussy (we were given the same instructions because of his SVT, so this isn't new), or if he vomits bile (there is no way I wouldn't be bringing him in if he vomited bile), and follow up with our GI - we see her in a few weeks. I'm so happy he was fine, but it was a 6.5 hour roller coaster ride.

We left the hospital at 7 to pick up Isla and Amanda very kindly waited until then to tell me that she had a fever and was gagging on her dinner. After profusely thanking Amanda, we took Isla home and got her ready for bed. As soon as she laid down she started coughing & an hour late she had thrown up all over her bed. The rest of the night was getting up with her every 30 to 90 minutes to deal with a crying, feverish toddler.

All in all it was a doozy of a day! But, the next day my friends took me out to coffee, I got some slightly belated cards, Isla got antibiotics, and everything was so much better! ...and that is why I celebrated my birthday the day after my birthday.