Disclaimer!!
*there may be some baby poop TMI in this post* *reader discretion is advised*
The last couple months have been stressful in the Brown household. On March 13th, Aidan started to have a little diarrhea. Just a couple times, and I really thought nothing of it. There had been a bug going around. He was still drinking a large amount of formula, and was mostly himself. That was Tuesday. Wednesday, he had more diarrhea. I had called the on-call pediatrician, and we were in agreement that since he had no fever, and was still eating and acting ok, I would call our regular pediatrician the next morning.
Around 10 that night, I was on the phone with Nick (he was on shift that day). I took Aidan in to change his diaper, and as soon as I opened it, I knew something was wrong. I told Nick I needed him to come home. He asked, 'now?'. I said, 'yes, right now. There's blood in Aidan's diaper.' He told me to call the on call doc back, and see what to do, he was on his way. I again called the on call doctor, and was told to take him to our local ER. As soon as Nick walked in the house, I had Aidan bundled up and ready to go. He was SCREAMING. A scream that I had never heard before. I had heard his 'I have gas' scream and his 'I'm hungry' scream. This was neither of those. This was a 'something's not right, and it HURTS' scream. I'm not gonna lie. I was terrified. I was trying to stay calm for him and myself, but I was on the verge of tears. Nick hugged me and kissed my forehead, and told me everything would be fine. Then we loaded Aidan up and made the 10 minute drive to the ER.
Once we got there, they got us checked in, and into a room. We explained what had been going on. Of course by now, Aidan wasn't screaming anymore, he was for the most part asleep. They decided to watch him for a little bit, and to xray his little belly, to rule out a telescoping of his intestines. The doctor in the ER told us that after we had the xray done, as long as it looked good (which he suspected it would) we would be sent home, with instructions to call our Ped in the morning. Nick went with Aidan to have his xray done. When it was over, I could hear Aidan's blood curdling scream before the even made it back into the ER. We're talking the shriek of the devil coming out of my beautiful little boy. Back arching, face red, writhing all over shrieking.
A few minutes later the ER doc came in, and asked about the 'crying' he had heard. I told him that that was what Aidan had been doing all day/night. It was at that point (before the xrays had come back) that the doc said to us that he wanted to send him to Hasbro Children's hospital, about an hour away. He said that even though he didn't have alot of symptoms that point to any one thing, everything combined with the exorcist type screaming, concerned him enough to send him. He said if it was his child, he would take him. We agreed. He told us he was going to get everything ready, and discharge us, and we would then drive Aidan to Hasbro. {Keep in mind, Nick's a fire fighter/EMT} About 5 minutes later, the nurse comes in, and tells us that Westerly Ambulance will be there in about 10 minutes to pick us up and take us to Hasbro. We were confused, and asked to talk to the doc again. He said that when he called Hasbro, the insisted that Aidan be transferred by ambulance. Ok, fine. Inside my head, I'm panicking...what is wrong with my baby...and what about the symptoms made Hasbro decide and ambulance was needed?? After we discussed it, we decided that I would ride with Aidan, and Nick would follow us in his truck.
At this point, Aidan was still screaming from the xray. The poor kid was exhausted, obviously in pain, probably hungry, and just over all annoyed. My heart was breaking. As the ambulance crew got there to package him, he pooped again. ALOT, and there was a
The ride to Hasbro was uneventful, once Aidan fell asleep. We got there, and they carried him in in his car seat. They had me go to the desk to start giving them information. I could see him in the triage room, and saw that he was starting to wake up. They took him out of his seat, and laid him flat on his back. Not a good idea. I hadn't been close enough to tell them not to do that, because he would scream. Something about being flat hurt his belly, and he let you know it. After they let him scream for a couple minutes, they finally told me that I could go into the room where he was. They said they didn't know what happened, or why he was crying so hard. I explained to them that it was because they had put him on his back. They handed him to me, and I put him up on my shoulder, and he started to calm down. They got all his vitals and everything, and then sent us to register. Once we got registered, we got to a room, where they had us undress him down to his diaper. Which of course involved laying him down again. My heart was breaking having to do this over and over to my poor baby. The doc and a nurse came in and looked at him, and asked if he had been eating. I told them that he really hadn't eaten anything since about 7pm (it was now about 2am). They got us some Pedialyte, and we tried to give him that. He had a couple mouthfuls, and decided he was done. They took him back for another xray (Nick went with him again to hold him down). When that came back, they said his left side was full of poop, and his right side was very full of gas. They decided on an ultrasound. Nick and I decided that since Nick had held him down for both is xray's I'd go for the ultrasound. That was the most heartbreaking, soul crushing thing I have ever had to do to my child. I had to hold his legs down, and eventually I had to hold his arms down, too. He was screaming so much that he started to loose his voice. He was pushing at the ultrasound tech, trying to get her to stop touching his belly. I was talking to him, singing to him, rubbing his head, holding his hands. Anything I could do in hopes of getting him to calm down. To no avail. after about
About 30 minutes later the doc came in and said that there was no sign of telescoping, but there was alot of gas and poop. We already knew that. He asked if he had pooped yet (which he hadn't) and then decided to watch him for 15 more minutes. After the 15 minutes, he came back and again asked if he had pooped. Again, he had not, but he was finally sleeping peacefully. They decided to send us home, with instructions to follow up with our ped in the morning. We got him dressed, and bundled, and in his seat, ready to go. Signed all the paperwork, and we were on our way. In passing the doc said something about a milk protein allergy, but pretty much dismissed it as a cause. (It stuck in my head after that though.) By the time we got home, it was 645am. We left Aidan in his car seat, so as to night wake him up, and Nick and I fell into bed, and slept until Aidan woke up around 9:30.
The next day we took him in to see one of the pediatricians in our office (not his ped, as she had the day off.) We went through everything from the night before, and we showed her one of his 'red' diapers. They tested it to make sure the blood was in the stool and not coming from somewhere else. It was indeed in his stool. They weighed him (he had lost about 6 ounces) and we then started discussing what was going on. The ped decided she thought he was having a problem with the generic formula that we were using, and advised us to go back on the Similac Advance. She also mentioned the milk protein allergy, but also brushed it off. She told us that it could take 2-3 weeks for the blood to clear up, but as long as he was drinking and peeing and pooping, he was fine. She advised us to stop giving him solids for a few days, to give his tummy a rest. And we were on our way.
Long story short, we were back a our regular pediatrician a week later, only to discover that Aidan is allergic to milk protein. Our poor child had been put through the ringer just to find that the one thing that both the ER doc and the ped in our office had both brushed off, was indeed the problem. He was immediately put on Similac Allimentum formula, and within 24 hours, there was no more blood, he was eating 40+ ounces of formula a day, and his poop was solid again. It was amazing (and discouraging all at the same time) how quickly he went back to normal.
I'll finish up the rest of this in Part 2, coming in a couple days!
