Another hospital stay

We received a phone call a few days after we left Rochester from the geneticist.  She said that some of Keean's blood work came back and she wanted us to come back to review the results.  I immediately got a pit in my stomach because they had initially told us that the only reason we would have to come back is if something in the results came back telling us something.  SO, we made an appointment for the next day (it is a 4 hour drive for us to get to Mayo) and headed back down there.  Keean was sick when we did this and threw up in the hotel the night before we went to see the Dr. In less than a week from when we had been there the first time, Keean had lost 1.5 pounds.  The geneticist told us that the blood work that came back could either point to a metabolic disorder OR it could just mean that he was dehydrated and malnourished.  Well, considering Keean was puking and losing weight when we had blood drawn, my guess was the latter of the 2. So they had to repeat the labs.  We were also sent to the pediatrician again when we were down there to review what everyone had done while we were there.  When she saw that Keean had lost so much weight, she insisted that we be admitted to the hospital down there. 

I immediately started crying.  We were now 4 hours away from home and were being admitted to another hospital.  I, at this point, was 5 months pregnant with Keean's baby brother and we had things going on with that pregnancy too.  I was beyond stressed out.  When I had my 20 week ultrasound with Keean's baby brother, he had a marker for Downs Syndrome.  Approximately 4 days prior to being admitted to Mayo with Keean the doctors at Fairview Medical Center sent off blood work to test my baby for Downs and those results were not in.  Although I was completely 100% aware that this was not the end of the world, I was scared.  I remember laying in the hospital room crying uncontrollably.  I had this sick baby who couldn't eat, couldn't gain weight and kept needing to stay in the hospital and I had no idea how I was going to take care of another baby who could possibly have medical issues too.  I felt selfish for wanting another baby, I felt selfish for not even thinking that this could happen to me and for not thinking that we should figure out Keean's stuff before we tried to have another one.  I felt bad for feeling bad because we were BLESSED to even have the opportunity to be parents again.  I was a mess.  I would like to blame the hormones, but I'm pretty sure the feelings I was having were real.  I felt like I didn't want to be pregnant anymore, that I was in over my head.  That there was no way I could be a good mom to Keean and my 14 year old as well as a baby who would also need me.  I didn't know what to do with myself and I was horrified!  I remember seeing the geneticist at Mayo and she was appalled that we would even consider getting pregnant again not knowing if what Keean had was a genetic disorder.  My justification was this:  We had no idea we would ever figure out what was going on with Keean.  They had ruled out just about anything and everything and we weren't getting any younger.  I wanted another baby and if God thought we could handle 2 special needs babies, well then GREAT!  BUT, when reality set in and it was an actual possibility that we have 2 babies that would be high medical needs it scared the crap out of me.  Thankfully, the blood test for Keean's baby brother came back normal.  But that I wouldn't know until AFTER we got out of the hospital in Rochester.

The hospital stay down at Mayo was not my favorite, but there are definitely worse things in the world.  Keean was started back up on continuous feeds and they said we could go home if he could go 24 hours without puking.  Right before we were discharged, they let Keean and I go down to the cafeteria to eat lunch.  After setting off all the alarms in the building and causing a hospital shut down (due to forgetting to remove his alarm bracelet when we left the peds unit) we went to eat.  As we were finishing up our lunch, Keean threw up all over the table at the cafeteria.  Naughty mommy took Keean back up to our hospital room to change him and didn't say a word.  I knew if they knew he had thrown up we would have to stay.  And I knew what to do from home.  I also knew that if we needed to we could be admitted to the hospital closer to home.  Thankfully, Keean ended up fine after lunch and Mayo has since been our last hospital stay (knock on wood).

 The blood tests from the geneticist ended up all being normal so the metabolic disorders were ruled out.  Little by little we were ruling out anything and everything. 

This was Keean before getting admitted to Rochester Mayo