One more week

It was now August 11, 2011.  One week after we had been admitted to the hospital.  We had packed up to leave twice and had our hopes up that after this feeding tube we would get to go home.  

I'm not sure if everyone is familiar with how Children's Hospital works, but they have Dr's who round for up to 1 week and then they rotate out and a new doctor would come in for anywhere from 3-7 days.  So, the doctor we had when we were admitted was not the doctor we had 2 days after we got there because we came in the middle of the rotation.  This is true with the pediatricians, the hospitalists, the GI doctors, etc.  

The pediatrician we had during the week of August 11 was one of our favorites.  When she came in to talk to us the morning of August 11 she was very comforting and talked about numerous things going on.  She said she noticed that Keean was really good at starting strong with something new and then he starts to show similar symptoms he was experiencing when he was admitted.  Because of this, she asked that we strictly tube feed him for 24 hours and only feed him by mouth for comfort.  She believed that Keean had begun associating food with pain and because of this was lacking nutrition to grow and feel better.  

At this point, the tests that were run had all came back negative.  His diagnosis was a "super-fluxer", Failure to Thrive and a stomach that was slow to empty.  Keean was puking up to 2-3 hours after he ate.  This was frustrating and discouraging.  Just when we thought we had gotten him to keep a bottle down, he would throw it up.  

Because of this, the doctor said she wanted us to stay for 5-7 more days to see how he did.  Our plan was to add back more through his bottle little by little with hopes to keep it down to grow and gain weight so he could strengthen the muscle that kept his formula down.  

At this point, we had adjusted to the idea of staying in the hospital.  We were in a routine.  We would take turns getting a good nights sleep in the Ronald McDonald House while the other stayed with Keean. Up to this point, we were not allowed to leave the room with Keean, so when we would go eat or anything we had to leave him alone.  When the pediatrician spoke with us, she said we had permission to leave with him!  This was so exciting!  To think that something so little as leaving the hospital room WITH my boy could make me so extremely happy. They only asked that we come back every 4 hours for vitals and to change out the feeding bag. Life was good.  Keean was happy.  We got to walk out of the hospitals 4 walls and take him outside.  And in our minds the end of our hospital stay would be over in 5-7 short days!!!!  The only thing missing was having our big kids with us.