The January Sickness

The house has been hit by a bug. A coughing, sneezing, yucky bug!

Last Tuesday night it all started. Jillian would lay down, fall asleep for 10-15min and then wake up screaming. We did this until 12:30am. (It started around 10pm). We had no idea why she was screaming but with some Tylenol she finally slept for longer then 15min but was still up multiple times during the night.
Wednesday she was not herself. She just kinda sat at school all day. She did not do much. By the time we got home she had a 99.8 temp. The night started the same way. She would lay down, fall asleep for a little bit and then scream. Again the only way we got her to sleep was with Tylenol.
By Thursday morning she had a 100.3 temp so Brent stayed home with her. During the day she vomited 7x. We are not talking about a little spit up here. No we are talking about forcefully puking that starts with coughing... then starts gagging... then forcefully vomiting.... and ending with more coughing. We are talking about over 2+ ounces at a time. You can her her breathing in while vomiting, which is how she gets aspiration pneumonia. Now what does a child who has nothing in their stomach vomit? Well, a lovely mixture of stomach acid, liver bile and mucus. Her stomach can't handle anything in it. When she gets sick she gets mucus that drains into her tummy just like everyone else. The difference is that most other people can handle the mucus, but she can't so she vomits everywhere. Her lungs are also filling with mucus and she vomits (just like I did when I was little) to get the mucus out. This is making for a lot of vomit right now. She normally spends a good amount of time during her day swallowing reflux of stomach juices but at this point she is normally able to keep it in. By the time she went to bed on Thursday she vomited 3 more times.
Friday morning stated with vomit around 4am. Uncle Dan was able to work from home and take care of her. I was able to get off of work around 12:30 and come home. While Dan and Jilli were home in the morning I got to use my Christmas gift that Dan bought me... a house cleaner for a few hours to deep clean the house! When I got home I took over taking care of Jillian and she and I hung out. I was not feeling great with a runny nose and she was just exhausted. It was really good that I was home because during the afternoon I passed an ovarian cyst and had a hard time doing much.  She continued puking and needing nebs through the day. Her temp got up to 101.1 during the day but by night it had dropped. She also started to refuse her oral meds on Friday. She would clamp her lips shut and try to slap the syringe away. Most of the time when we would give her a med she would vomit. Sometimes right way and other times up to a 1/2 hour later.
Saturday morning started with 4am puking again. We all slept in a little and then got up and got a few things done. In the afternoon she purked up and was acting more like herself, although still vomiting and refusing some of her meds.  We were hopeful that the worst was over.
Sunday morning started the same with vomit around 4am. Brent had to be to Church early and Jilli and I were at my parent's house. She was still puking and pushing meds away. We were still doing nebs every 4 hours. We decided that it was time that she was seen. Mom and I took her to the Children's walk-in clinic on Mooreland road. We got there right as they opened at 11 and we are lucky we did . By the time we were walking into a room they were telling the people that were walking in that it was over an hour wait before they would be taken to a room! We did her weight which was off because she had all of her clothes on. I kinda wish I had made them do an accurate weight because I feel like she has lost weight in this sickness. We went to the room and the nurse did her vitals and her history. Her pulse ox was around 92. That is not where they want it. The nurse went out and I could hear her talking with the doctor. The doctor ordered a chest x-ray and a neb before she walked in the room so we could get those done as soon as she was done listening to her. She came in and listened to her lungs. She said that you could hear wheezing from her one lung and the other one was rattly. She left the room and the nurse came back in with the neb. As soon a the neb was finished someone from x-ray was there. Jillian hated getting the x-ray done. We walked into the room and she took one look at the machine and started to scream. I think she associates x-rays with tube changes because she normally grabs onto her tube and screams. The rooms do look similar. We got back to the room and her pulse ox was still only at 93 so they did another neb. The doctor also ordered some Prednisone  to help with her lungs. A while later her pulse ox was back to around 91. Then she started to do the cough.. gag.. and then she vomited everywhere. Once she was done vomiting her pulse ox went up to 96 so they said we could go home. The doctor said the x-ray was cloudy but not pneumonia, just and upper respiratory infection. They also put her on an antibiotic for an ear infection. We left and mom brought Jillian and I back to our house. That evening my mom came back and we all had dinner together and mom spent the night.
Monday morning started the same with vomiting around 4am. My mom had the day off because of the holiday so she hung out with Jillian and Brent and I went to work. She slept really late and continued to need nebs every 4 hours however she was not puking as often. By the time I got home from work she was in a good mood and playing. I was hoping that all the meds had kicked in and she was really doing better. She even managed to unsnap her pajamas, pull her tube out of her clothes, open the g port and was chewing on the J port. It was hard to get her to sleep but by 9:30 she was out. I hooked up her pump and gave her a neb at 10pm. I could smell that she had pooped s I changed her, did her meds and she went back to bed.
Tuesday morning started out the SAME way with coughing and puking around 4am. Have I mention that 4am and I are NOT friends right now. Luckily I got up to her coughing and was able to catch what came out. Brent gave her a neb ad we watched some Full House while we tried to get her back to bed.
This morning when I got her up she had pooped everywhere. Then I went upstairs to get her drainage bag and somehow during the night it sprang and leak at the bottom so there was next to nothing in the bag but the floor was soaked. I looked over at her at one point this morning and noticed her g port was open and the little silicone piece that holds the cap on is hanging by a thread. Luckily we get that changed on Friday, so until then it is taped. A little while later she was sitting on the floor and all the sudden a volcano of poop starts flowing out of the top of her pants. Right now her poop is lovely with all of the mucus. Needless to say it has been eventful around here today.
She is in a good mood today and will play for a while and then just get so winded from playing and will just have to sit and breathe for a while. You can still hear her breathing across the room. Right now she is taking a nap and she keeps squeaking while breathing.

Her doctor's office called me on Monday because they had gotten a report that we had been at Children's and wanted to know what was going on. I filled them in. They called me back a while later and said that the doctor wants to stop doing any shots for a while since she always seams to get really sick after. It is like her body cant handle the knock in immunity so then she gets every little thing and they really kick her butt.

Right now I am not sure of the coarse of this illness. I feel like one moment she is starting to act more like herself and then the next she is crashing again. I think if she is still not doing better by tomorrow she will need to go see a doctor again because at that point she will have been on steroids and antibiotics for 4 days. We are trying to be patient and wait this out but we don't want this sickness to get out of hand. So we will see what tomorrow brings and just hope that we sleep past 4am...

Just so exhausted

I'm sleepy

Cinderella Baby is good for keeping company during nebs

The boys holding her over the sink while she vomits. She vomited through the dish towels I was holding so this was the next closes thing

The walk-in gave her a backpack full of books that someone donated!

Her current meds minus the one she had already taken

Yup, thats poop

Mom... do you have to take my picture now!

The puke does not smell the same

We have started the switch to some formula. We are trying to make the Brest milk last so we are doing part breast milk and part formula. We started this weekend. We wanted to start her before all the formula was gone too so we can make sure she does not have a problem with it.

So far the most formula we have mix in during one day is 6oz of the 31.5 she gets.

We started mixing it into her night time bottle too. The past few nights it has just been 5 of the 15ml and the reast breast milk. Tonight we decided to see how she did with just the formula to see what is in store. She has only ever drank breast milk. For a couple if months she drank water, not well. She has had pedialight a couple times in the hospital, but otherwise it's just mommy's milk. 

At first she looked at Brent like he was tricking her but then she drank it. 

She refluxed it like normal and completely spaced out a few times. Then she did something that is quite rare with 15ml, she puked on me. About 1/2 teaspoon. A small amount, but it was some. To be expected. The saddest part for me, it did not smell "right." I know, your kid should not have a puke smell, but for Jillian it has been her perfume for so long. It just does not smell right. 

She almost puked twice on Dan after that, but save him and kept the puke to her mouth. 

In other news, she has a rash around her mouth tonight. I think it is from passy drool. We shall see. 

Reflux cough

Reflux cough, why must you come? 

Her reflux is defiantly worse with the cereal in. I'm debating if we can do this three more days. 

Last night she was more reluctant to take it and spaced her bites even farther. It ended up being over 10min, which is the ideal length of time. We were at my parents and had my grandma over for dinner. I fed her in her high chair just before we all ate. A few minutes into us eating she started arching her back a lot and fussing. Normally the rule is that she needs to stay in her high chair while we eat but I just could not make her when I induced the pain. 

During the night she started coughing. By this morning again she was coughing A LOT and you could hear her tummy refluxing. I vented her again. We use a 10ml syringe and I filled it to the top with liquid and air. You could see grains of rice cereal still in the mix of tummy juice. The past few days when I have vented her or has been white and clear. Today it was neon yellow. About 20min after I vented her, the g port popped open and at least another 10ml came out all over grandpa, her backpack, herself and the floor. It was thick and nasty. 

I could not get her cough to stop though after we got the gunk out of her tummy. It switched from a reflux cough to an irritated lung way cough from having coughed so hard. I gave her a neb to help with. She took it well. 

Today at church she kept coughing and then she would cry. We ended up just hanging out because you could tell she was trying hard to be quiet but it hurt. She kept throwing her head back. She is smiling right now when she is not coughing or trying not puke. 

Grainy

We have done two more times of 5ml of milk on the spoon and then 10ml of milk mixed with cereal. 

Here is a message I wrote to a friend about Thursday's feeding:

Her second spoon feeding ever. She did about the same as yesterday. She starts good and about 1/2 way through she starts shoving her passy in her mouth after every bite and sucking hard. She is willing to eat til the end of the food but she spaces out bites really long. We were sure she was going to puke on us about 3min after finishing eating. She started heaving but was able to keep it in. She cried off and on after. She did give a good burp though after eating today which she did not do yesterday. Her breathing is loud now from the reflux and is coughing. I'm excited though that even though you can tell it hurts she is still willing to keep trying. She is such a fighter.

Last night she took it pretty well too. Towards the end she was interested in most things other then eating and would not look at the spoon at times. She was sloppier with eating and more of it came rolling out of her mouth. By the time she was done she was arching her back a lot and coughing. She did not want anyone but her mommy. The coughing continued through the night and got nasty sounding. her reflux cough is distinctive. This morning when she got up she was still coughing and you could hear that her vocal cords were full of puke. I decided I would vent her because it is just not good to still be refluxing 12hr later. I hooked up the syringe and 6ml of air and fluid came out. In the fluid was little grains of the cereal still. It was still sitting in her poor tummy. There was some stomach acid and flem mixed in too. The cough has gone away again and her breathing sounds better. 

Is it weird though that she smells "normal" to me with the smell of puke on her breath? That she almost smells funny when she has not been refluxing. I guess I'm ok with her not smelling normal though, it is just strange to me though on days when she does not smell like puke. Today however is not one of those non puke smelling days. 

I went to change her diaper earlier and noticed little dots in her diaper area. It looks like the rash that's on her tummy. The tummy rash has come and gone this week. Today her tummy is not red but her skin feels like sand paper. I gave her a bath. We will see if it helps. She ended her antibiotics Wednesday so we will see what goes on now. Those antibiotics helped her poop though. We were able to go down .3ml of laxative this week. I know that does not seam like a lot but for Jillian it is. Her poop was kinda like sandpaper at times though too this week. Today she has not pooped yet which tells me the antibiotics are out of her system, I'm just hoping it is a smooth transition back to normal laxative poop.