Sunday around 5:00 pm I talked to Dr. Defusco about how he was doing. He was still in horrible pain and had not wanted to get off the rocker. He wasn't sitting up to play, wasn't smiling... nothing. By this time, the pain had been this severe for over 3 days, so we needed to do something. Dr. Defusco and I talked for a while going back and forth with his symptoms wondering what this could be. She called the ER pediatrician and spoke with him a while, and they decided that his symptoms could be something called an intussusception. This is where your bowel kind-of "telescopes" inside itself and it could cut off the blood supply- it can be very serious. So when she mentioned that, we knew we couldn't take any chances and she said she would sleep better knowing that we were sending him to get checked.
So she let the ER doctor know we were coming and we packed up (takes about an hour) all our things as if we were going to be admitted (just in case). You can never be too prepared- been there, done that. We go to Ochsner in Metairie, so we got there at about 8:30. This was by far THE BEST ER experience that we've ever had. I swear, it was like everyone we came in contact with knew Tripp and knew exactly what I expected. They didn't do anything unreasonable and they treated us with such respect. The x-ray technicians were SO pleasant and SO gentle with Tripp, the nurses were great, the secretaries were great, the doctor was great. I know, WE ARE BLESSED to have that kind of care for Tripp.
They decided that from his abdominal x-rays and his symptoms that it wasn't an intussusception. Then thought it could be possible C-Difficle, which is a bacterial infection that can be caused from taking antibiotics. The Doc said that just all the diarrhea itself could be causing the pain by the bowel contracting. So they took a stool sample and let us come home because it wasn't worth the risk to keep him in the hospital when he wasn't dehydrated (I've been drowning him in Pedialyte).
But guess what? C-Diff is negative. I poked at my brain all day yesterday and finally realized that he could have a Urinary Tract Infection from all the diarrhea. And if you've ever had one of those, you know they hurt like hell. I noticed that when I was changing him, his diaper would be dry and then all of a sudden he would let out A LOT of urine while squeezing his legs in pain. Yesterday was the first time I noticed that he was actually "holding" his urine in. It must be hurting him so bad.
SO... if that's what it is, hopefully this short round of antibiotics will take care of it and we can try and get back to normal. Dr. Defusco is wondering if he really even had pneumonia now, because his chest x-ray looked the same when we took it again Sunday night. So maybe that's just what his lungs look like... who knows. But we know he had some type of viral infection with all the fevers he had for over a week.
So here's the vicious cycle: Eye surgery > catches something from the hospital > has to be on antibiotics > antibiotics cause diarrhea > diarrhea causes a UTI > back on antibiotics. NICE. Just hoping once we get him better, that we don't need another eye surgery. Then we're back at square one.
Speaking of eyes, his surgery eye isn't looking any better and it's almost been 2 weeks. It's still really swollen and watery. So I guess once he feels a little better, that will be our next thing to worry about- because there's ALWAYS something :) Oh, and between all these "diagnoses," he's lost over a pound. Thank God I fattened him up before all of this or we'd be in bigger trouble. He's back on his regular "fatten me up" diet now, so hopefully we can pack the pounds (or pound) back on.
I haven't been taking many pictures, because honestly, he hasn't played in over a week. But I do want to share a book that I've been reading. It's called Without a Word by Jill Kelly. It's Jim Kelly (the Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame quarterback)'s wife. The book is about their son, Hunter, who was born with a rare genetic disease called Krabbe's Leukodystrophy. Hunter passed away at 9 years old. And this book is about all of the struggles they had to endure in that amount of time (their family, their marriage), but mostly about what a blessing Hunter was to their lives. It's like I could have written this book. It's almost exactly our situation. If you're looking for a new book- this one's a good one.
Ok, I can't leave you without a picture, so I give you.... the hands of an angel-
Love,
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