Doctor’s Visit

Nicholas saw the Doctor today.

The little guy awoke at around 11pm last night. Very strange as he has been sleeping through the night for about 8 months now. We checked his temperature and he had a slight fever. We did our best to break it and we were successful with a bit of Ibuprofen and Acetometaphin. Unnfortunately Nicholas didn’t take too kindly to being brought out of his sleep.

Around midnight we decided to try and give him another bottle just in case he was hungry. He gulped it down like there was no tomorrow. We felt like tomorrow wouldn’t come at this point. Sometime around 1 am he was crying so hard in our bed that he decided to let his milk fly… in our bed. We cleaned that and I brought him out in the living room to play with some toys. At 2 am Siobhan got me to take Nicholas for a ride to put him to sleep. We drove for about a half hour and he seemed to be sound. I took him out of his seat and he quirked a little. I brought him into his crib and gently laid him down. All seemed good. A little after 3 am he woke up crying again. No matter what we tried he would not go to sleep. If we put him in his crib he would seem to settle, then start crying. When we would check on him he would be sat up, mad at the world because he still doesn’t know how to lay back down. At 3:30 am I did the dishes, just in case we had to leave with him and needed spare, clean bottles.

Sometime around 4 am Me and Nicholas headed down to play with the Curious George Website and I told Siobhan to go and grab some zzzz’s. He enjoyed that, talked back at George, hit the keyboard every chance he got and was in good spirits. Then we started watching our favourite movie, Cars. Again, that was good. After 20 minutes or so he started getting fussy with lying against me so I decided to try him in bed. We hopped into the spare bed and he immediately snuggled down. At last!

Sometime around 5:00am he started quirking… he tried sitting up. He was fussing so I helped him. Once he was sat up he laid flat on his face with his head towards the foot of the bed. Sound asleep. I crossed my fingers and shut my eyes again. 5:20 am he was up. Mad at the world again because he was on his face and couldn’t see what was going on. I helped him sit up and you could tell he was quite confused. Our basement bedroom is light blue with dark blue and blood red strips running up and down the walls. He looked at one wall and then another. Eventually he realized I was there, frowning and trying to see him without my glasses. This was about the same time he started crying.

We got up with him and tried everything in our power to help him feel better. Nothing worked. I was all fooled up, my eyes weren’t working properly and I felt like I hadn’t slept in a week. Siobhan tried to get some cereal into him for breakfast and he started his usual ritual of coughing and gagging so I went into the room to get his buddy, the stainless steel bowl. On my way out I hopped over the bed, still half blind, and ran into the door facing. Somehow I managed to make it out to Nicholas and drop the bowl under his mouth. He proceeded to throw up the little bit of cereal he had in him and I went wrangy. There were no if, ands or buts about it. We were heading to Grand Falls to see the doctor. I had read too much about GERD and Pyloric Stenosis to wait any longer to hear from our referral. At 9 am we were at the gas bar, filling up our CR-V, loaded with luggage for 3 or 4 days if necessary.

We got to the Hospital in Grand Falls and stated our situation. We were sick and tired of our little guy throwing up his meals. After waiting for about two hours we finally got to see a pediatrician. We explained everything to him and he looked Nicholas over and told us point blank that this little boy was not a sick child. He seemd to be very healthy even while having a little cold attacking him. He’s growing, learning and gaining weight. What we are experiencing seems to be a strong gag reflex. It should be gone long before he hits five years old, but may last longer. The only thing that we need to follow up with is a Barium swallow test to ensure that the esophagus is working good.

We fed Nicholas twice since then without issue… using pureed, watery foods.

Once we got home this evening the little guy seemed to be much happier. He played with his toys but still sooked us a little. We put him to bed tonight and he was upset for a few seconds before snuggling into his blankets. It’s 11:11 pm right now and so far, so good. Time for me to catch up on a few zzzzz’s myself.

Rene
Rene