With Many more to come I'm sure.
We have had little testings (we like to call them) the past 7 days. About a week ago Dave tried to upgrade our windows and something didn't take. Within moments hundreds of hours of work for my new business and, most important, most of my pictures of Henry and my brother Vinny were gone. The computer people fixed the computer but all of that stuff was still missing. Pretty disappointing. Tuesday we did get the good news that after asking the computer people to search the corrupt data again, they did find all of that stuff. I had a wonderful day meeting with new customers for my new business. I don't know if God gives me the heads up in my spirit or what, but all day I had this gut feeling something was going to happen to Henry. I don't usually have that feeling (I know it's pretty normal for new mothers to be paranoid). Well, I was meeting with these amazing new clients in the afternoon and Dave called saying Henry wasn't too happy. I looked at the clock and realized it wasn't afternoon, it was early evening! I raced home feeling very guilty. Henry was great. Seemed happy. I made a delicious dinner, fed Henry, and just as I was about to begin eating, Henry started violently vomiting. His clothes were soaked, the chair and pillow was soaked. I didn't flip out. I took him down stairs to change his clothes. Then he vomited all over our bed. He started crying out in pain. I called my mom. When I was on the phone with her, his whole body started heaving from his gut. To say I was worried was an under statement. We searched for a thermometer. Of course the battery was dead. We ran next door to Molly's and she started searching but couldn't find one. In the mean time, we tried to give him children's Tylenol to help his pain. He started heaving vomiting again. My mom agreed we should take him to the emergency room to calm our nerves. Henry went extremely lethargic. This kid just doesn't act like that. We were terrified. We made it to the emergency room and, thank You God, they got us right in. The waiting room was packed and if you have ever been to the emergency room before in this area, you know it's hours before you even get a room. The check in nurse seemed to think he was okay because he didn't have a fever. Our nurse for the evening hooked him up to a monitor. She said she thought he might have this horrible virus that was going around. She had had it and was very ill. We were feeling better. She said his heart rate looked good and not to be alarmed unless it went close to 180. She was wonderful. She left the room for a LONG time as they often do when you're in an emergency room. Henry started heaving again in pain and his heart rate started hitting 180. The alarm was going off and I was flipped out. Finally I went to find them. The nurse calmed me and said it was normal for what he was going through. We waited for the blood work to happen. When it did I had to leave the room. It took three of them to hold him down and draw the blood from his little, precious arm. They wanted him to drink fluids but he wouldn't take any, even breast feeding. Around 10:30 an xray was done. He had just eaten a little bit before his xray and was in pain but didn't vomit. After all his tests we waited and waited. Everything seemed promising and we felt we probably over reacted but were happy to be safe then sorry. Then the ER doctor came in to go over everything. It started out good. Then he said Henry's white blood cells were very elevated, his glucose was high and his xray was abnormal. Okay. So many thing went through my mind. I was surprised that at this point I remained way calmer than I expected. The doctor said he was going to call Maine Medical to see what they thought and to see if Henry would be sent down there for more testing. Having your child sent to the children's hospital is not what a mother or father wants to hear. On the other hand, if your child is sick, you would much rather have him be there. The doctor told us Henry might have a bacterial infection, it may even be in the blood (which takes 48 hours to figure out) or he might have some rare intestinal issue that happens in infants. All the tests were pointed to the latter. I called my mom and she had been calm up until this point, but she started to flip out. Surprisingly, again, we were some what calm waiting to hear if we were going to Portland. The doctor came back in to tell us that he was ordering an IV and for Henry to be sent to Portland by ambulance. Maine Med did want to see him. Alarming. Then we waited hours for the IV to be hooked up and the high dose of antibiotics to be hooked up to the IV. Finally, Henry and I were put on a stretcher and moved to the ambulance. I saw the paramedics waiting in the ER for hours before we left. Dave and I both agreed we hoped they wouldn't be the ones taking us. They were. They ended up being really nice. As nice as they were, I was a very, very, very stressed out mother. My eyes never left the monitor for more than a few seconds. The thought of being out of a hospital when they were saying my child might have this or that (trust me, you would have been frightened by the doctors description) freaked me out. I did manage to drum up a spiritual conversation with the EMT. I always feel things happen for a reason even though I didn't want that to happen with every ounce of my being. I would have lived in a paper box for the rest of my life not to see my baby so sick and thinking it might be worse than we had thought. The knots didn't come out of my stomach until we reached Maine Med and the Barbara Bush wing around 3 am. When the doctors came in to introduce themselves, Henry seemed to have improved dramatically. He was flirting with the female doctor and that made me very happy. I was told by the doctors and the nurse not to co sleep with Henry. I didn't listen. He hadn't slept in a crib yet, I wasn't going to make him after being in so much trauma. The head doctor came in around 7 am. The white blood cell thing was really what bothered us the most. She explained why it might spike and suspected that it would be back to normal when he had his blood tests at noon. It was sounding better and we were exhausted to say the least. Henry slept a lot, Dave slept a little and I didn't sleep. (It was so heart wrenching to see his little arm in a splint for the IV- I didn't mention how it was putting in the IV. HORRIBLE). My mom showed up around 11:30 and the blood tests came around noon. It was great they only had to do a heal prick that time. The lab tech thought it would only be 1.5 hours before we would hear. We waited and waited. Around 3 I started to get pushy because I wanted to go home if he was okay. I really was trying to be pleasant but the nurse wasn't the nicest person on earth if you know what I mean. She finally printed the report off and handed it to me without going over it. I think she was trying to be mean, because it was all in acronyms and medical jargon. I could read it enough to see that his white blood cell count was still high. I started to flip out internally. There was no doctor showing up to explain it. I called my mom and she decided to turn around and come back. I went out of the room to flag down a doctor. I found one and she said she was discharging Henry. Henry had a bad virus and it just had to run its course. Earlier the doctor had a completely different story about she thought Henry's intestine did do that rare thing but had corrected itself. Okay. Not liking the situation. The head doctor who told the first story came in and explained why his white blood cells were still elevated. Why the doctor in Rockport was alarmed because his immature white blood cells were so high when they took the first test. Although his white blood cells were still high, the ratio of the immature had decreased, so things were looking better. Phew. We felt better. We got discharged. Dave was a hero the whole time, although I think he was just as scared as I was. He drove us home. We got some dinner, but I couldn't even eat even though I had been starving. I went to sleep with Henry and woke up only a few times until seven this morning. We were praising God for the results. We were thanking God for all the people who prayed around the state and around the country. One funny part is about a mile out of the parking garage, Henry started having serious, come out of your diaper diarrhea. We had to pull over into a parking lot in Portland and practically give him a bath.
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