We're home!
I am sorry we have not been able to keep everyone up to date on everything that's been going on. Hopefully you have heard somehow thru the grapevine everything that unfolded the past several days.
We had thought Ella was completely over her virus and she still had a little lingering tummy problems, but had no more vomiting. Wednesday morning she threw up all of her breakfast, so I decided to take her into the doctor. Dr. Hodges checked her over, said the virus could stick around for 7-10 days, keep her hydrated and call if it got worse or she wasn't completely over it in a few more days. I got her home and she really started going downhill that afternoon. She stopped taking any liquids, wouldn't let me put her down, and cried and moaned non-stop. As most of you know, Ella hardly ever cries, so I really started to get worried. By the time John got home that evening from school, I had about lost my mind from holding her for the past 6 hours straight. She had also started to seem lethargic and was drifting in and out of sleep a lot. John went to change her diaper and saw blood in it and so we decided to take her to Children's Hospital. As we were packing up getting ready to go, she vomited bright green, which is bile.
So off to Children's we went. If you've never had to experience a children's emergency room in the middle of the night, its awful. The board said, depending on the severity of the situation, could take anywhere from 5-7 hours for "Green" level, 1 1/2 - 5 hours for "Yellow", etc. Ella was yellow, and we waited from 9:30pm-12:30 before being seen. They pretty much immediately decided she was dehydrated, and wanted to test her stool for bacteria infections, and run lots of other blood work. They decided to go ahead and admit her to the hospital, which I was pretty thankful for b/c she looked absolutely terrible. We had to stay in the ER hospital room for the night b/c our doctor forgot to put in an order for us a normal hospital room. We maybe got about 30 minutes sleep, and Ella would only sleep if someone was holding her.
They did a few x-rays of her abdomen, and they came back abnormal, so they decided to have some surgeons come and talk to us. The doctors mentioned something called an intussusception, but they didn't think that could be it b/c usually when children have this, they are screaming at the top of their lungs and pulling their knees up in agony b/c it is so painful. I was still thinking she was just dehydrated and needed fluids and maybe had another strain of this stomach virus. But, I was very wrong!
They ordered an upper GI, which meant she had to drink some chalky liquid while they watched her stomach and intestines for any abnormalities to see if they could find out what was going on. While we were waiting for more x-rays, we went in for an ultrasound to see if they could determine if this was an intussusception, which they immediately saw. They kept explaining it to us that basically it meant her small intestines were telescoping into her large intestines. They would try to fix the problem by doing a barium enema, which they would insert a tube into her bottom, and blow air to see if that would fix the blockage. If that didn't work, they would pretty much immediately need to take her into surgery to fix the problem. One of the risks of this procedure is it could possibly blow a hole in her colon. If this happened they would of course, immediately take her into surgery to fix it, and the intussusception. They did the procedure and it fixed it! She perked up pretty much immediately and the doctors were thrilled and we were so relieved. They did tell us there was a 5% chance that it could come back, so they wanted to keep her in the hospital for 24 hours just to watch her.
At this point we finally got an actual room (it was about noon on Thursday), Ella seemed to be doing better and we actually got a little smile from her. Everything seemed to be stable, so John left to pick us up some clothes and get us some toiletries from home. While John was gone, Ella's pediatrician stopped by to see her. While she was there, we noticed Ella seemed to go downhill again, and started crying and whining again. They decided to go ahead and do another ultrasound just to make sure it had not come back (all this while John was still at home with a dead cell phone!). Well, it had come back, so they immediately did another barium enema. It fixed the problem again, but the doctors warned me that our chances were going up that it might happen again and might eventually have to do surgery if it kept coming back.
Got Ella up to the room, John came back, and not 30 minutes later I thought it had happened again. I tried telling the nurse to page the doctor b/c I thought it had come back, and she kept trying to tell me that she had JUST had the procedure done, which of course I knew. Finally she paged the doctor, we got another ultrasound and sure enough, it had come back. At this point, we were surrounded by so many different doctors, heads of departments, telling us how unusual this was. They said they had all been watching and tracking Ella's situation all day and all stunned. They said they would try the barium enema no more than 3 times before they would decide to do surgery. The procedure worked again, but I think virtually seconds later it had come back. One last ultra sound verified it had come back. The head of the ultrasound department showed up to inform us that in his 28 years of practicing, he had never even heard of this coming back 3 times in one day. At this point, it was about 7pm on Thursday. They decided it was time for surgery, and they would need to start calling in all of the on call doctors to come in to do it that evening.
The surgeon came and talked to us and said he wasn't sure what he would find when he got in there, and so the procedure could take anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. The recovery time could be anywhere from 1 week-6 weeks. He had to tell us the worst case scenarios. Worst case was that he would get in there, her intestines would have been like this for a while and he would find dead parts that would need to be cut out. If it was too torn up to sew back together, he would need to pull the intestines to the skin, she would have a bag she would need to poop out of for about 6 weeks. Needless to say, John and I were horrified.
About 8:30pm Thursday we took Ella back to get ready for anesthesia and met her team of doctors and nurses. Everyone was so nice and Ella seemed to perk up a lot and almost was smiling at some of them playing peek-a-boo with their masks. We then went to the surgery waiting room where David, Allison, Meagan, Jenny Strickland, and Ella's pediatrician were. Soon, Natalie Bailey, along with several people from work (DeLynn, Jenny, and Laura) came in. It made the wait so much more tolerable having lots of people there to talk to and keep up our spirits. The surgery didn't start until about 9:30, and maybe lasted about 30 minutes, which was much more quickly than we were anticipating. He said that they got in there to look at everything, and it turns out that the intussusception that the last ultra sound had shown, had actually corrected itself. He examined the entire colon and found nothing that needed repair or looked swollen or anything. He said they were all amazed at what happened, and even video scoped the whole thing to present at some medical conference b/c it was such a bizarre case.
They think her body just needed the anesthesia to relax and correct itself. She had to have 3 tiny incisions; one in her belly button, one right below and one right above. She should still be able to wear a bikini with no sign of a scar or anything!
She was a little groggy and fussy from the surgery, but we have continued to see improvement every day. The nurses that saw Ella the night she came into the ER and saw her the day she was leaving said she looked like a completely different baby.
We did have one small scare right after we were discharged on Saturday. We were packing up getting ready to leave the hospital, had already signed our paperwork, and I decided to give Ella a few more ounces of formula. Well, she threw up basically everything she had eaten all day right after that. They paged the surgeons and they wanted us to hang around for a few more hours to make sure it didn't happen again. Luckily it didn't, and they explained that it may take a day or two for her systems to get back to working normally. But to call or come in if she starts vomiting continuously again. They said, chances are that this will not happen again, but since she it has already come back several times, her chances are a bit higher than most. They could not explain why this happened and said she falls into the category of Unknown Cause. They originally thought it could have been caused by the stomach virus, and that is usually the case in babies her age.
We've now been home for a little over 24 hours and Ella is doing so much better. She's gotten a lot of her energy back (only took 2 tiny naps today, brat!), is slowly eating more and more, and is basically back to her smiling, happy self. Tonight she said "Ella" for the first time and started blowing kisses!
We cannot thank everyone enough for the prayers, phone calls, snacks and meals, Starbucks!, stuffed animals, balloons, plants, hospital decorations.... Thanks also for those of you that risked your life entering my virus infested house to clean my house and do laundry while we were in the hospital. You have no idea how much easier it was coming home to a clean house and clean laundry.
I think we are both still in shock and still very exhausted. I know I'll be on pins and needles for a while just hoping this thing doesn't happen again. I have definitely learned that a mother's intuition can sometimes be stronger than any medical opinion. When something like this happens you definitely remember to thank God every day just to be alive. We are just so thankful that Ella is doing so much better, and so blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family that have helped us through this.
I am sorry we have not been able to keep everyone up to date on everything that's been going on. Hopefully you have heard somehow thru the grapevine everything that unfolded the past several days.
We had thought Ella was completely over her virus and she still had a little lingering tummy problems, but had no more vomiting. Wednesday morning she threw up all of her breakfast, so I decided to take her into the doctor. Dr. Hodges checked her over, said the virus could stick around for 7-10 days, keep her hydrated and call if it got worse or she wasn't completely over it in a few more days. I got her home and she really started going downhill that afternoon. She stopped taking any liquids, wouldn't let me put her down, and cried and moaned non-stop. As most of you know, Ella hardly ever cries, so I really started to get worried. By the time John got home that evening from school, I had about lost my mind from holding her for the past 6 hours straight. She had also started to seem lethargic and was drifting in and out of sleep a lot. John went to change her diaper and saw blood in it and so we decided to take her to Children's Hospital. As we were packing up getting ready to go, she vomited bright green, which is bile.
So off to Children's we went. If you've never had to experience a children's emergency room in the middle of the night, its awful. The board said, depending on the severity of the situation, could take anywhere from 5-7 hours for "Green" level, 1 1/2 - 5 hours for "Yellow", etc. Ella was yellow, and we waited from 9:30pm-12:30 before being seen. They pretty much immediately decided she was dehydrated, and wanted to test her stool for bacteria infections, and run lots of other blood work. They decided to go ahead and admit her to the hospital, which I was pretty thankful for b/c she looked absolutely terrible. We had to stay in the ER hospital room for the night b/c our doctor forgot to put in an order for us a normal hospital room. We maybe got about 30 minutes sleep, and Ella would only sleep if someone was holding her.
They did a few x-rays of her abdomen, and they came back abnormal, so they decided to have some surgeons come and talk to us. The doctors mentioned something called an intussusception, but they didn't think that could be it b/c usually when children have this, they are screaming at the top of their lungs and pulling their knees up in agony b/c it is so painful. I was still thinking she was just dehydrated and needed fluids and maybe had another strain of this stomach virus. But, I was very wrong!
They ordered an upper GI, which meant she had to drink some chalky liquid while they watched her stomach and intestines for any abnormalities to see if they could find out what was going on. While we were waiting for more x-rays, we went in for an ultrasound to see if they could determine if this was an intussusception, which they immediately saw. They kept explaining it to us that basically it meant her small intestines were telescoping into her large intestines. They would try to fix the problem by doing a barium enema, which they would insert a tube into her bottom, and blow air to see if that would fix the blockage. If that didn't work, they would pretty much immediately need to take her into surgery to fix the problem. One of the risks of this procedure is it could possibly blow a hole in her colon. If this happened they would of course, immediately take her into surgery to fix it, and the intussusception. They did the procedure and it fixed it! She perked up pretty much immediately and the doctors were thrilled and we were so relieved. They did tell us there was a 5% chance that it could come back, so they wanted to keep her in the hospital for 24 hours just to watch her.
At this point we finally got an actual room (it was about noon on Thursday), Ella seemed to be doing better and we actually got a little smile from her. Everything seemed to be stable, so John left to pick us up some clothes and get us some toiletries from home. While John was gone, Ella's pediatrician stopped by to see her. While she was there, we noticed Ella seemed to go downhill again, and started crying and whining again. They decided to go ahead and do another ultrasound just to make sure it had not come back (all this while John was still at home with a dead cell phone!). Well, it had come back, so they immediately did another barium enema. It fixed the problem again, but the doctors warned me that our chances were going up that it might happen again and might eventually have to do surgery if it kept coming back.
Got Ella up to the room, John came back, and not 30 minutes later I thought it had happened again. I tried telling the nurse to page the doctor b/c I thought it had come back, and she kept trying to tell me that she had JUST had the procedure done, which of course I knew. Finally she paged the doctor, we got another ultrasound and sure enough, it had come back. At this point, we were surrounded by so many different doctors, heads of departments, telling us how unusual this was. They said they had all been watching and tracking Ella's situation all day and all stunned. They said they would try the barium enema no more than 3 times before they would decide to do surgery. The procedure worked again, but I think virtually seconds later it had come back. One last ultra sound verified it had come back. The head of the ultrasound department showed up to inform us that in his 28 years of practicing, he had never even heard of this coming back 3 times in one day. At this point, it was about 7pm on Thursday. They decided it was time for surgery, and they would need to start calling in all of the on call doctors to come in to do it that evening.
The surgeon came and talked to us and said he wasn't sure what he would find when he got in there, and so the procedure could take anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. The recovery time could be anywhere from 1 week-6 weeks. He had to tell us the worst case scenarios. Worst case was that he would get in there, her intestines would have been like this for a while and he would find dead parts that would need to be cut out. If it was too torn up to sew back together, he would need to pull the intestines to the skin, she would have a bag she would need to poop out of for about 6 weeks. Needless to say, John and I were horrified.
About 8:30pm Thursday we took Ella back to get ready for anesthesia and met her team of doctors and nurses. Everyone was so nice and Ella seemed to perk up a lot and almost was smiling at some of them playing peek-a-boo with their masks. We then went to the surgery waiting room where David, Allison, Meagan, Jenny Strickland, and Ella's pediatrician were. Soon, Natalie Bailey, along with several people from work (DeLynn, Jenny, and Laura) came in. It made the wait so much more tolerable having lots of people there to talk to and keep up our spirits. The surgery didn't start until about 9:30, and maybe lasted about 30 minutes, which was much more quickly than we were anticipating. He said that they got in there to look at everything, and it turns out that the intussusception that the last ultra sound had shown, had actually corrected itself. He examined the entire colon and found nothing that needed repair or looked swollen or anything. He said they were all amazed at what happened, and even video scoped the whole thing to present at some medical conference b/c it was such a bizarre case.
They think her body just needed the anesthesia to relax and correct itself. She had to have 3 tiny incisions; one in her belly button, one right below and one right above. She should still be able to wear a bikini with no sign of a scar or anything!
She was a little groggy and fussy from the surgery, but we have continued to see improvement every day. The nurses that saw Ella the night she came into the ER and saw her the day she was leaving said she looked like a completely different baby.
We did have one small scare right after we were discharged on Saturday. We were packing up getting ready to leave the hospital, had already signed our paperwork, and I decided to give Ella a few more ounces of formula. Well, she threw up basically everything she had eaten all day right after that. They paged the surgeons and they wanted us to hang around for a few more hours to make sure it didn't happen again. Luckily it didn't, and they explained that it may take a day or two for her systems to get back to working normally. But to call or come in if she starts vomiting continuously again. They said, chances are that this will not happen again, but since she it has already come back several times, her chances are a bit higher than most. They could not explain why this happened and said she falls into the category of Unknown Cause. They originally thought it could have been caused by the stomach virus, and that is usually the case in babies her age.
We've now been home for a little over 24 hours and Ella is doing so much better. She's gotten a lot of her energy back (only took 2 tiny naps today, brat!), is slowly eating more and more, and is basically back to her smiling, happy self. Tonight she said "Ella" for the first time and started blowing kisses!
We cannot thank everyone enough for the prayers, phone calls, snacks and meals, Starbucks!, stuffed animals, balloons, plants, hospital decorations.... Thanks also for those of you that risked your life entering my virus infested house to clean my house and do laundry while we were in the hospital. You have no idea how much easier it was coming home to a clean house and clean laundry.
I think we are both still in shock and still very exhausted. I know I'll be on pins and needles for a while just hoping this thing doesn't happen again. I have definitely learned that a mother's intuition can sometimes be stronger than any medical opinion. When something like this happens you definitely remember to thank God every day just to be alive. We are just so thankful that Ella is doing so much better, and so blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family that have helped us through this.
Here are a couple of pictures we took of her tonight, playing with some of her hospital room decorations....
2 comments:
what an amazing journey you all have been through! i am so glad that you are home and ella is happy again. thank you for sharing. we are glad to know how to pray for your precious family. i really enjoyed reading your "back blog." it was nice to catch up on what has been happening with you all. good luck to john with all that is in your immediate future!
Bowles!! Ella looks so happy. Drew said she looks like her self again. :0) We love you all so much. Beautiful girl!!!
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