Hospital

Sorry it has taken me so long to post this. I took Sydney to her pediatrician's office almost 2 weeks ago on a Monday afternoon. She was pale and her energy level had gone way down hill. I knew her hematocrit was already a little low from being tested at the GI doc a few weeks before. The pediatrician agreed that she was pale and ran her blood count. Well the lucky number ended up being 15 almost 16 he said. Way too low! The nurse at the GI office had told me they want it between 30-40. (A few weeks earlier at the GI doc it was 27.) So this bought our ticket to Children's Hospital. We were on our way to the hospital and on 8th avenue Sydney started to throw up old blood. We finally got the the ER and when I walked in holding her and the triage nurse saw us she freaked! She said is that blood she threw up? I told her it very well could be. (Sydney had had a few M&Ms at the doc's office.) As this point another nurse walked up and the first nurse told her go ahead and take her back she is vomiting blood and is pale. So we got to go immediately back. Her heart rate was between 160-180bpm. She was pittiful looking. By this time she had pretty much lost all her energy.
They put us in a room and the nurse and 2 docs came in to find out about her history. A few minutes after they were done the same nurse and another came in to start an IV. Well, the nurse starts looking around for a vein and doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me that she knows what she is doing. She kept telling the other nurse well maybe this one or maybe I should go here. Well, she finally decides to go for a vein in her AC, where the bend in your arm is. Which I was always taught look there last. Well she proceeds to stick her and then "dig" around in her arm as she tries to find the vein. Being a nurse myself I don't have a lot of patience for this especially when it is my child. Well the other nurse takes over and guess what they hit an artery. So they took the IV cath out and the other nurse starts to look in her foot for a vein. She finds one immediately and sticks and this time it goes right in, Praise God.
A few minutes later one of the doctors comes in and tells us he has been talking to his attending and they feel like it would be best for Sydney to go to the pediatric intensive care unit that night. Well at that moment your heart just sinks and you think to yourself, oh my gosh my child is sick.
They take us to the PICU and tell us that while they are admitting her we are not allowed back there with her. Let me tell you it is not fun to be told you can't go with your child to this unfamiliar environment where people are messing with her. I think she was out of it enough to not really care though that we weren't with her. About an hour later or so it felt, the nurse comes to get me and Rusty. Her name was Emily and she was taking care of Sydney. I actually went through hospital orientation with her way back when I first started at Children's. She was really sweet and it does give you some peace to know your child is in good hands. They had brought a TV over to Sydney and she was watching Little Einsteins when we went back there. I got her and just held her. During the night they proceeded to give her a unit of blood. Dr. Cavender, a GI doc, came by and saw her and said that they would go ahead with her colonoscopy and endoscopy on Tuesday. At 10:00 we had to leave her in PICU. It is awful having to put your child in a crib and walk out and leave her by herself with her crying after you yelling "momma." it just breaks your heart. At 12:00 we got to go back in and thankfully she was sound asleep. We were able to stay with her until 2:00. During that time her unit of blood had finished and an hour after it was done they drew another hematocrit on her. It had come up from 16 to 26.4!!! How amazing was that??!!! Even the doctor was surprised it came up that much. Her heart rate had settled down to about 110-120bpm.
The next visiting hours were not til 8:30. We went out to the waiting room to try to get some sleep. Well waiting room chairs are not that comfy. Around 4 after waking up about every 15 mins, i decided to get up and head home and take a shower since it might be my only chance to. I got back to the hospital around 6 and mom headed home then to shower. Rusty went to his aunt and uncle's house by Legion Field because i had brought him clothes.
At 8:30 we went in. She was awake sitting up in bed watching her new found favorite Care Bears Movie. We watched The Care Bear Movie all day. She didn't want to watch anything else. Her hematocrit was up to 26.8. She was definelty more awake today. We waited all day for them to take her for her procedure. Around 1 she started asking for juice and saying eat. Poor baby she couldn't have anything. We had to leave her again a little after 2, again very heartbreaking. Finally at 3:45 they came to get her for her colonoscopy and endoscopy. She took to the OR with her 2 of her Pooh bears. I tried to take one of them but she wouldn't let me. After kissing her good-bye they took her to the OR. About 45 mins later her doctor came out and told us that she has stomach ulcers and gastritis. He said he didn't know how she got the uclers but he biopsied everything and hopefully we would know more when he gets the results back. They took her to the special care unit afterwards to watch her that night. She was doing much better that night. She finally got her juice. we were able to stay back there with her most of the night. She slept pretty good until they woke her up around 4 and then we had to watch the lion king until she feel back asleep at 5:15.
Her doctor came around that morning and said that she could eat breakfast and as long as she tolerated it we could go home. her hematocrit that day was 29.9. She ate her normal amount of breakfast and tolerated it fine. finally around noon we were out of there. WE went to go get Mary kate from Dinana's house. Dinana said she had had a couple of really big "Spit ups". she had changed her clothes once and MK's clothes twice. we finally got home, so good to be home. the rest of the day was very uneventful.
On Thursday Sydney felt great. I really felt like she was acting like her old self again. until that night..... around 10:30 that night she woke up and started throwing up. She proceeded to throw up another 10 times that was just straight bright red blood. I tried to call the GI doc on call and never got a response after calling two times. So i felt like i didn't have a choice but to take her to the ER. Of course I am at home trying to reason things out for why she is throwin up blood. I mean she did just have an endoscopy on Tuesday that he biopsied. But to no avail we were off to the ER. In the meantime, I call my mom to tell her and she tells me she is throwing up too. Poor mommy. In the ER her hematocrit was 30.9. They finally got in touch with the GI doc and he said that he knows where her bleeding is coming from so he wasn't that concerned. he added another medicine for her and we were able to come home. Right before we left the ER, I threw up. It was horrible. Rusty had to be at work at 5 that morning so I dropped him off at Verizon. The rest of us came home and went straight to bed. Thank goodness Mary Kate was so good that day. When Rusty got home that night he started throwing up. The stomach bug had hit us all. Needless to say we had a fun weekend of the stomach bug at our house.
So alright I guess I have bored you all enough but that is the update on Sydney. Also, she is supposed to be taking a lot of meds right now. She unfortunatley is not so great at taking them. We have tried everyhting we know to get her to take them and it doesn't work. Please pray that she will start taking them better. I am so afraid that we are going to back track and end up right back in the hospital. She is already starting to show some signs of backtracking. Thank you to all for all the prayers and thoughts. Thank you to Kasey for letting MK stay with you while we were in the hospital. Thank you Dinana for keeping MK on wed. Thank you to all who came to visit us and for the gifts, balloons, etc. we are so blessed and thankful for such a wonderful group of family and friends. We go back to the doc on Tuesday, more to come then....