Little By Little

A lot has happened since my last post. On Thursday morning, Trip's belly was really swollen. The nurse was concerned and warned me that the surgeon might want to put a tube down to his stomach to drain it out.

When Dr. Breaux arrived, he did indeed call for a tube. They tried to put it through Trip's nose, which they said is the most comfortable. Both the nurse and the doctor tried, but they couldn't get it in, so they had to go down his throat. That got a lot of liquid out of his stomach and we could tell almost immediately that it helped him feel a little better. After a little while, we had to put a sock over his left hand because he was trying to play with the tube and pull it out. He was definitely still hurting.

By Friday morning, his tummy was feeling softer, he had been passing gas, and was filling diapers, so the tube came out.

He started being a little more interested in his surroundings as he was on less and less morphine. Our friend Deb brought him this dog that lights up and sings songs.

Friday evening he was finally able to drink some clear liquids. This is a picture of his first bottle. He got two ounces of Pedialyte, which he sucked down in no time. He was quite disappointed when it was gone.

He continued to get Pedialyte during the night and filled lots more diapers. Dr. Breaux cleared him to start nursing this morning and then to start eating other things after that. He also finally got to get disconnected from the IV fluids. He started smiling again this morning, which warmed our hearts. He got to eat some pureed carrots and munched on Cheerios all afternoon.

After Dr. Breaux's visit this evening, the nurse came in and took the IV port out of his hand. That allowed us to give him a bath in the sink. He was very excited to be in the water.

We are SO thankful to have our boy back! He is smiling, laughing, playing, talking, eating, rolling, and doing all of the great things that he does.

If he continues to do well tonight, we will probably get to go home sometime tomorrow.

Thank you for all of your love and prayers. We would not have made it through this whole ordeal without the support of our family and friends.

Recovering

Trip had been fussy this weekend and we could see a top tooth coming through, so we didn't think much of it. By Monday morning he seemed happy and fine, so we both went to work. By early afternoon, Kristen called Kirk to tell him that Trip wouldn't eat anything and then started throwing up and got lethargic. He left work and picked him up. I got home just shortly after they did. Trip was definitely not himself, so we decided to take him to the after-hours clinic. The doc there said that he most likely just had a gastrointestinal virus and should be better in a couple of days.

During the night, however, I changed his diaper and found blood in it. After a couple more bloody diapers, we knew something was really wrong. We called the pediatrician first thing in the morning and they sent us to the ER.

They admitted Trip right away and said that he most likely had an intussusception of his intestines. That means that the intestines telescope on each other or get turned inside out in each other. The diagnostic tool, a barium enema, is also often the cure because it straightens the intestines back out. The ER sent us over to radiology where we got to watch the x-ray screen while the doctor tried to fix the intussusception. When he started, everything what in a big knot and it slowly started to straighten out. They worked for quite a while and Kirk held Trip down during the procedure. I was so thankful that he was there. He's much better with that type of thing that I am! Finally, the doctor had to stop and said that it was not going to get fixed completely that way. They sent us back to the ER and said that the pediatric surgeon would be down shortly to see us. By then we knew what the next step would be.

The surgeon came in and explained that the only way to fix the problem was with surgery. He told us all about it and we signed the papers. He said that he hoped to just get in and fix the intussusception, but that there was a risk that some of the bowel was already damaged and that he would need to remove it. Less than two hours later, Trip was headed to the operating room. That was the worst part of the day for us. It's not fun to watch your child be in pain, but the unknown of surgery and anesthesia is worse. They paged us during the surgery to say that part of Trip's bowel and colon was necrotic and had to be removed, but that he was doing well otherwise. Once the surgery was over, we met with the surgeon. He said that things had gone well and that it was actually a good thing that the barium enema had not worked because there was a hole in the bowel and had it been exposed, all of those toxins would have leaked into Trip's body.

An hour or so later, we got to go up to Trip's room and the recovery nurses brought him in shortly thereafter. We have a private room with a hospital bed for one of us to sleep in and a chair that folds out into a bed too. The floor is almost empty, so it's nice and quiet. The nurses are very nice and only bother Trip if they need to. He has been sleeping a lot and is on a pretty steady dose of pain meds. He responds to our voices and looks at us when he is awake, which is really nice. We're missing his smile, though. Once his intestines start working again, he will be able to drink some clear liquids and we'll go from there. For now, he is staying hydrated with IV fluids.

Here he is checking out the balloons and monkey that Uncle Gary, Aunt Tammi, and Cooper sent him.

He had been rubbing his eye and got it irritated. The nurse said that it's probably from the tape that they put over it during the surgery.

On the right you can see his new blanket. An organization called Project Linus makes blankets and donates them to the hospital so that sick kids have a special blanket to snuggle with. We even get to take it with us when we go home. At this point it looks like the earliest that will happen is this weekend.

Thank you to all our family and friends for all the love and prayers. We have definitely felt them during this whole ordeal. Trip is loved by so many people and we are so grateful for that!

Breakfast!

Trip loves finger food and the independence of feeding himself. Cheerios are a favorite.

He uses his right hand a lot, but uses the left too. This one's for you, Auntie Rachel. :)

The dogs are quite fond of Trip feeding himself too since he drops plenty of treats for them.

"Look, Jale, Mommy's taking a picture of us!"

Another favorite activity is to pull all of his toys out of the basket and scatter them around.

Happy Easter!

After church today, I wanted to get some pictures of Trip in his Easter outfit. Sitting in the grass was not such a good idea since all he wanted to do was eat the dead leaves. Jale was quite interested in the whole thing as well!

A blanket helped a little, be he figured out right away that he could pull it out of the way and get to the leaves again.

Happy Easter!