week ending apr 19, 2009:

Week ending April 19, 2009: This week has been mostly about Chloe’s tummy problems. She threw up several times Monday, wouldn’t eat much on Tues or Wed, complained of constant pain and by Thursday was listless. I called her gastroenterologist and we talked about how I’d seen strawberries that she had eaten 12 hours earlier coming back up. The doctor said that her stomach isn’t emptying and that there is a medicine to help with that. Chloe started the medicine Friday and threw up less than an hour later, but she felt a little better on Saturday. She threw up once Saturday night but then ate quite a bit of food afterward and slept through the night. On Sunday she ate a little more than the previous day, and complained a little less. Also on Sunday she was active almost the whole day and spent only a little time too tired to play or so nauseas that she sat in the bathroom. I keep asking various health care providers how long my 40 lb child can survive on less than half her normal food and what are the symptoms that would designate her problems as an emergency. They all say that as long as she is able to maintain hydration, she is not in an emergency state, or looking at it the other way around, if her body gets to the point where she’s not bringing enough calories in, her body will also not be able to maintain hydration. So far we’re in the clear, and with her slowly getting better, we may stay that way. I still don’t understand why increasing this medicine (Nexium) that is supposed to help her would cause her body to react so violently. I can’t seem to get an answer on that one, so it worries me to be giving her such a large dose.
Alex has been getting short shrift while I wait on Chloe hand and foot, and by the end of the week he started to let us know. On Saturday evening he didn’t get his way over a relatively minor issue and he threw a big fit and we had to carry him crying away from a party. As we carried him he threw his head back and yelled “WHY DOESN’T ANYBODY LISTEN TO ME ANYMORE?!” He does have a flair for the dramatic sometimes. We made sure to have some special “Alex time” on Sunday to try and make up for a bad week.