I had to reach the on-call doctor since it was after 5 pm in Mountain Time Zone. The on-call doctor called me a few minutes after I had called the answering service....I told him what was going on and that we were visiting up in the Seattle area. He said if we were in Oregon to go in to the ER right away....this freaked me out a little bit. Since we were in Seattle area and only have Oregon insurance, he said to wait and see if there is another bloody diaper and if there is to go into the ER right away. Sure enough, 10 minutes later Logan started pooping in his diaper. We checked it after he was done and there was more bright, red blood. I started packing his diaper bag and of course was an emotional wreck because I didn't know what was going on with my baby. My mother-in-law suggested we go to Seattle Children's Hospital because they've had really good experiences with them and they would most likely accept our insurance even though we were out of state. I've heard the ER on NYE is one of the busiest nights of the year so I was glad we were going to a Children's Hospital where we hopefully could avoid all of that.
On the way to the hospital I sat in the back seat with Logan and held his hand while he was in his car seat. I text my mom and other mother-in-law to let them know what was going on and shortly after my sister-in-law who is a nurse called me. She said the same thing happened with her son when he was about 5 months old and it turned out that he was intolerance to dairy. I was hoping that this was all it was and it wasn't something serious.
The hospital was 30 minutes away and we got there at about 7:15 pm.We checked in and waited a few minutes to be called back. Once in our room they checked all of Logan's vitals and his overall body condition. Everything looked really good so that calmed my nerves a little bit. They ruled out a few of the things they thought it could be since he wasn't dehydrated and it wasn't dark blood. Bright, red blood usually means something is off in the lower part of his body (rectum/colon). Dark blood usually means something further up in the GI tract.
Waiting with daddy!
He sure loves his giraffe (Thanks Grandma Stanley)
In order to really pinpoint the issue they had to do a few blood tests...this was probably the worst part of the night. The nurse located a vein in Logan's right arm, but had a really hard time getting blood to come out of it....she may have missed the vein or something because she kept on turning the needle to get something. Logan was screaming and I felt so bad for him. All I could do was try and comfort him, but nothing helped. They tried for a couple of minutes and decided they would let him take a break for a little bit and try again. Next they tried in his wrist and got blood. They collected blood for all of the tests and told us it would take about 45 minutes - 1 hour until we heard the results back. They put a catheter in his wrist and taped it down really good so Logan wouldn't pull it out. They did this just in case they needed more blood for any reason.
Poor baby!
They put a sock over everything and Logan fell asleep in my arms. He was so worn out after that blood draw and it was his bedtime so he was so tired.
He was so worn out, I'm glad he slept for a little bit!
He woke up 20 minutes or so later and was full of energy and all smiles at Daddy and I. We even got him to giggle at us as we were playing with his Sophie (giraffe).
Poor guy! I took this yesterday after his bath.....this is where they were trying to get blood out of first.
The doctor walked in not long after and they told us the blood tests came back normal and nothing was of concern. That really made us happy, but we still wanted to know why there was blood. They couldn't narrow it down to just one thing so they told us it was either an intolerance to dairy, a fissure (tear in the anus), or a virus he is sick with. They told me to cut dairy out of my diet for 1 week to see if that improved things. Logan had a stuffy nose and cough when we went in so we're thinking it most likely had to do with the virus. Logan hadn't been constipated recently so we knew it most likely wasn't a fissure either. When we went in the ER last week, Logan had eczema on his cheeks and it has gone away since then....most likely due to me cutting dairy out of my diet. Cutting dairy out of my diet has been REALLY hard because I eat it at least once a day. I found a few substitutes that are lactose free (thanks Andrea and other friends) and they will help me to be able to cook normal food without making me go crazy haha. This whole dairy free thing is probably good for me right now because I've been wanting to shed that extra baby weight and this can hopefully help me get closer to my goal.
Logan is still pretty sick right now which is sad to watch. He won't turn down snuggling though....which I love. I really hope he gets better soon. We went his doctor yesterday for a follow-up ER visit and because he is so sick I just want to make sure he didn't have bronchitis or anything. For the past week or so he has had really bad diarrhea....I have been changing his diaper so much recently because I didn't want him to get a rash. He didn't escape the diaper rash like I hoped and has yeast infection on his bum....poor guy. The doctor wrote us a prescription for some cream and we're hoping that clears up soon. The doctor also told us to have him drink pedialyte the next few days to see if that helps him to stay hydrated and lessen the diarrhea. Logan is so uncomfortable when he sleeps on his back so we've had him sleep in his bouncer the past few nights and that has seemed to help. We're hoping to get our normal baby back soon.
Oh man! Sick babies. So sad. I hate going to the hospital. We actually had to go to Children's this past week to and it was just for outpatient stuff and I hated it. Ughhh. Hope he gets better soon though! hate it when they're sick.
ReplyDelete