On Wednesday, August 3, 2011, we went back to our pediatrician because Keean was puking again and not gaining weight. I will never forget the feelings I had. Exhaustion, frustration, anger, sadness, guilt, desperation, etc. etc., it was tough to go back once again after thinking we had him figured out. But, the biggest feeling I had out of the ones I mentioned was desperation. I wasn't going to wait it out to see if things would get better. I wasn't going to spend another night wondering if something horrible was wrong, I needed to find answers and I wanted them NOW.
So, we traveled to Willmar to our local pediatrician. She looked at my husband and I and asked us what we wanted to do. She asked, "What does your gut tell you?" And then said, "You can go to Children's where you have a team of experts to surround him, run tests, work together and try and figure out a plan, or we can wait it out here and see if things get better." Well.....I wasn't waiting. We went home and packed our bags. We were heading to Children's in Minneapolis.
August 4, 2011 we packed up our car and drove the 2 hours to the hospital. So many things were running through my mind. I had to leave my 11 year old back home, I was really sad about this. He was such a trooper and I know he was just fine staying with grandma, but it was hard for me to leave him. I felt so torn. I wanted everything to just be normal.
I remember the trip well. I cried. A lot. I remember telling my husband how scared I was to go back to work and how scared I was to find out what was going on with my baby. All the "what-if's" ran through my mind. Fear and anxiety had taken over. Why can't I be as calm and collected as my husband? Why can't I just wait for answers before I start worrying about the "what-ifs"? I wanted to scream. My mind was driving me crazy.
We were given instructions to go straight to the ER and they would start there. We were admitted into the ER where I think we sat for 3 hours before anyone came in to see us. They knew it wasn't a crazy emergency so they took care of those before they came in to see us.
We finally got admitted to our room which was a tiny room in the Infant Care Center Unit. This unit is typically for babies who have graduated from the NICU who no longer need the intense care, but still need more intense care than the pediatric unit. It was specifically for babies and the majority were still working on growing in their incubators. The fun part of being in this unit versus pediatrics is Keean was one of the biggest babies there (which was unheard of back home). He was a giant compared to some 2 month olds on that floor. We could handle that. Keean was the biggest 2 month old on the floor :) YAY!
I would be lying if I said it wasn't a huge slap in the face to walk through the halls of the ICC unit. I can't imagine what it's like in the NICU if these babies had graduated from there. It was tough. They were tiny. They had tubes coming from everywhere and there were machines that took up their rooms. A lot of their parents had to get back to work just to make ends meet so they were alone. Some of them couldn't be held even if their parents were there because they were too fragile. I thought to myself how selfish I was to be so angry and upset that my baby was so sick. Looking at these babies put things into perspective. It could be worse. Yes, it could. But that didn't make it easy.
I missed my 11 year old, I was sad for my 2 month old and I was scared and uncomfortable.
We saw a few specialists the night we got admitted. The GI doc we had traveled to see in St.Paul in July came to see us and so did an immunologist and a pediatrician. They took blood, pricked his heels, hooked him up to an IV, asked us a million questions and brought us our blankets and pillows to fold down their awesome couch for some sleep.
Sleeping was tough. It was cold, it was uncomfortable, it was loud and there were nurses coming in all hours of the night. They wanted us to wake Keean up every 2-3 hours to feed him. The pediatrican who came in asked us to start mixing his formula back to the 20 cal/ounce becuase sometimes the 27 cal/ounce is too much for them. So, we were mixing the 20 cal/ounce mixture and things seemed to be going well. We thought MAYBE just MAYBE we had the right formula but we were mixing it wrong. We thought that could be the simple fix. I was scared to be hopeful, but I had some excitement that this was the fix and we would soon be going home.
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