It was a rough weekend, but he made it. He’s been needing some oxygen support, but we still have room to go up. Nice job, my little warrior.
Now, prayers for his procedure today! Pray for the doctor involved. She knows Sam, but is not his primary GI doctor, which isn’t unusual for Sam when he is having a dilation. Pray for the anesthesiologist and the rest of the team who will care for Sam. Pray for no complications and that we’ll be able to come home today. Pray there is an easy fix and nothing else is going on. Pray for peace and continued strength for all of us.
They were able to schedule Sam’s next procedure with his GI doctor, surgeon, and ENT for November 21st. Unfortunately, his little esophagus is seeming like it won’t wait that long.
After this last hospital stay, Sam’s respiratory doctor agreed it would be a good idea to keep him out of school until his next procedure. I get it. As much as I want Sam in school, I think the risks outweigh the benefits at the moment. We don’t need anything else on top of what’s going on medically.
Sam is really miserable right now, but we are home. His symptoms are indicating he needs another dilation. Hopefully, that’s all it is.
We called the weekend, on call GI doctor. Thankfully, instead of telling us to take him to the emergency room, she got him on the surgery schedule for Monday morning. I cannot tell you how happy I was about that. My heart was really dreading another hospital stay.
For whatever reason when Sam needs a dilation, he doesn’t tolerate his feeds. We are running Pedialyte at the lowest rate possible to hopefully keep him hydrated enough until Monday morning and avoid a hospital stay.
Please pray Sam will tolerate the Pedialyte and be able to stay home until Monday. Pray there is nothing else going on. This poor little boy could really catch a break.
Prayers for our stamina as we are tired. This fall has been hard. Prayers to calm our hearts as questions and concerns are hard to push aside right now.
I’m thankful to believe in a God who loves my little boy even more than I do, and that He will comfort and sustain all of us.
We are home and very happy to be here. What we thought would only be one night, turned into five nights. And of course, as a few of Sam’s doctors mentioned, he threw a curve ball.
Although we know what to expect, you don’t get use to hospital stays. More importantly, Sam is feeling much better. The older Sam gets, the harder it gets to be in the hospital, and all the more excited he gets when we come home.
Yay!!!
We are now hoping he can make it two to four weeks for another esophageal dilation. His GI doctor wants Sam’s surgeon to be there, and Sam’s ENT plans to do a bronchoscopy. If you know anything about the medical world, scheduling three doctors at one time for a procedure is not an easy task. Prayers they can land on a time within the next two to three weeks. We do not want to be in the same situation we were in last week.
Thank you, thank you for all your prayers! They were definitely felt and answered.
Sam’s esophagus was barely open (esophageal stricture). This is nothing new for Sam, but it’s been a very long time since he’s needed a dilation. This is the best fixable answer we could ask for. His GI doctor dilated him and wants to dilate again in two to four weeks. Poor buddy.
Praying now he will tolerate Pedialyte. Generally, when Sam is hospitalized, the doctors want him to be successful on his home feeding regimen before we go home. We move very slow to get there. I was able to convince the docs to let him be successful on Pedialyte and let us work on the formula at home. Anything to give us a few less days in the hospital.
Now Sam just needs to turn the corner so we can get the heck out of dodge!
Thank you for all your prayers! Continued prayers Sam will turn the corner, his blood pressure will come down, and that he will not surprise us with anything else.
His CT scan didn’t show much, but his esophagus did raised some concerns. Shocking. GI will do an endoscopy and hopefully ENT, a bronchoscopy, if they can find someone.
Praying for answers, an easy fix, healing, the anesthesiologist, the doctors, the medical staff, a smooth and quick recovery.
Faith Over Fear
Sam Strong
The things that keep a mama going while living in the hospital with her child…
The other day when we came upstairs to the unit from the ED, the first nurse we saw coming out of the elevator said, “Sam, you’re back!” We went around the corner, and another nurse, yells, “Sam!”. I didn’t know whether to cry or smile with endearment. I had both emotions. Overall, endearment though.
The encouraging text.
A nurse who tells the lab tech, “When he’s feeling good, he has the best smile. A smile that will make you smile no matter what.”
The messages of comfort on my posts.
The nurse who had us four days ago, coming to check in on Sam and said, “I’m sorry you are still here. I hope they can figure things out and get you home quickly.”
Watching Sam give the tiniest glimpse of a smile only to his sister on FaceTime.
Other nurses who’ve had Sam in the past stopping in to say “Hi”, check on him, and sometimes me.
Sam has landed himself in the hospital. I was told on Sunday afternoon by one of his GI (gastroenterology) docs to bring him in to be evaluated based off his symptoms. We decided to try make it through the night, knowing what the Emergency Department (ED) might look like on a Sunday evening.
The next morning Sam’s nurse and I headed for the dreaded ED. For the first time in five plus years, I packed a bag before we left. I finally learned, since we rarely end up coming home from an ED visit.
Thankfully, when we walked into the lobby, the green light was on, which means they were not busy. We got back fairly quickly and began all the tests, i.e. IV fluids, labs, x-ray, and ultrasound. By the afternoon we found a seemingly definitive answer. Sam was very blocked up. Poor guy.
My packing skills are sub par. I like to have sandals while I’m in the hospital. You do not want to be barefoot on a hospital floor and when your getting up several times throughout the night to care for your sick child, sandals come in handy. Sam’s home care nurse got a pretty good laugh when I went to switch to my sandals. I was so prepared! I’m blaming it on lack of sleep.
Hmmmm, something’s not right here.
The plan was to keep him for the night, “clean” him out, start feeds, and go home. We’ve never had to do a bowl clean out before. Not fun.
He had a second x-ray because he clinically looked cleaned out, but was still not turning the corner. Bummer. The x-ray showed he was all cleaned out so we hoped it was just taking him a little longer.
Here’s the thing, when you have a nonverbal kid, these kind of things are that much harder. He can’t tell us what hurts or what’s bothering him. We can only use the cues we know for when he’s not feeling good. For Sam, the cues are facial grimacing, low energy, his nystagmus gets worse, and clicking his hips. We want our energizer bunny back.
On day three, he still wasn’t turning the corner. The consensus was try start feeds and see how he does or get a CT scan to rule out anything else.
We have landed ourselves in the hospital again. Ugh. He can’t catch a break.
We spent the entire day in the emergency room on Saturday. After all the routine testing and poking, we left with no answers. Grrrr.
He seemingly got better on and off, but overall was not progressing. We spent the entire day at the clinic/hospital on Tuesday getting more pokes and more tests. His pediatrician was a bit concerned. She called me that evening. She was worried. We still didn’t have any conclusive answers.
I don’t like when doctors actually use the word “worried”. It’s not a word they throw around often. It’s going be fine.
Wednesday morning, he seemed like he was getting better. Later that morning, he took a turn for the worse again. We brought him in at around two o’clock in the afternoon, and after about nine hours of waiting in the emergency department, we finally got a room at two o’clock in the morning. So tired. Coffee can cure that.
Thankfully, we were able to get answers after more poking and testing again in the emergency room.
As we were beginning to suspect, Sam has intussusception. To put it simply, this is when the intestines slide or telescope in and out of itself. As you can imagine, this can be very painful. Poor buddy. Sometimes it can fix itself, sometimes enema treatment will fix it, and sometimes surgery fixes it. It’s going to fix itself.
Okay, to anyone reading and believes that prayer can change things, let the prayers begin!
Pray Sam’s little intestines will fix themselves, he will not need treatment or surgery, and we will have a short hospital stay. This little boy does not need to add more surgeries to his already very lengthy list and needs to be home where he belongs!
Sam’s lab results came back positive for Rotavirus. This is the same little tummy bug, along with a Tracheitis, that put Sam in the hospital for a little over a week last May. It’s nice to have an answer. More often than not, we are playing a guessing game with him. One of the hospitalists, who knows Sam, even jokingly commented on it.
Today was a better day. He’s tolerating a very small amount of Pedialyte. When I say small, I’m talking fifteen milliliters an hour. You know the tiny cups you get when you buy children’s pain meds like Ibuprofen and Tylenol? Picture one of those small med cups only half full. That being said, he still has a ways to go before he can be off the IV fluids and we can get the heck out of Dodge!
Prayers Sam will continue to tolerate his feeds, for his blood pressure to come down, for my other three kids, my hubby, and me.
I’ve been working on this update for a while, and now Sam’s landed himself in the hospital. It would have been a year in May without any unplanned hospital stays. It’s a bummer he didn’t make it to a year, but ten months is a lot to celebrate!
As of now, we know he has a Tracheitis and what looks like a stomach bug. We are still waiting on some labs and a culture. We came in yesterday morning and he was quickly admitted. He’s already made a drastic improvement since he’s been on the IV fluids.
Now for the update I’ve been working on…
We obviously had an eventful December. Who am I kidding, it’s always eventful around here. Sam is generally busy with doctor appointments, but sometimes his many specialties seem to lump together.
We were very happy to hear although his uric acid is still high, since he’s started the new med, it’s significantly lower. We will continue to see nephrology more often to draw labs and get urine samples to stay on top of his chronic kidney disease.
He’s, of course, is a champ at blood draws and it’s been a comical experience each time trying to collect a urine sample. Each nurse who has been with us for these appointments has their own humorous story of collecting a urine sample with Sam and I.
His orthopedic doctor confirmed he still has developmental hip dysplasia. Once a year, he gets x-rays to check on his hips and she gives us the results right after. I’m always amazed at how she remembers specific details about Sam and our family. It makes my mama heart full. It’s a waiting game on when this surgery will happen. The longer Sam can wait, the better it will be for him.
It usually takes at least three or four of us to hold Sam down when he gets x-rays, but I was able to do it myself. I’m always very honest with him on what’s going to happen. He has A LOT of PTSD when it comes to x-rays. I tell him over and over again, “No owies, no owies, no owies…” For some reason, he actually believed me this time and I was able to hold him myself. Success.
We learned before we went to Florida, Sam’s MRI did show some heterotopias spots, and they might or might not be related to his seizures. The bottom line is that there is no big concern for the seizures. Thankfully, he has not had one since November.
His EEG was much more successful than we gave him credit for. Sam’s nurse and I thought there was no way this was happening when we walked in and saw the amount of cords that needed to get glued to his head. Not only did it happen, he did fabulous. We concluded, the tech who did the EEG, did not fully understand the small miracle that took place in the room that day.
That was annoying!
Sam’s other specialties were uneventful. Always a bonus.
I’m excited to announce, we will be going to Cincinnati Children’s in May for Sam’s laryngeal cleft repair!!!!! If you’ve been following, this is three plus years in the making. We’ve had to reschedule twice due to Sam getting sick and having GI (tummy) complications.
Prayers for peace, comfort, easy answers, and a short stay for Sam!
Sam will have his first eye surgery tomorrow. The hope is this will fix both eyes and he will only need the one surgery. He will also have a scope to look at his esophagus (endoscopy).
The ophthalmologist doing the surgery explained, “Often there are kids who have one lazy eye that needs surgery to be corrected, sometimes there are kids who have two lazy eyes that need surgery to be corrected, and rarely, are there kids who have two lazy eyes and nystagmus that need to be corrected with surgery.” Yep, that sounds like Sam.
As always, pray for his doctors, nurses, anesthesia team, and anyone else involved. Pray for a smooth and quick recovery for Sam. Pray for a successful eye surgery and answers to our seemingly never ending digestive issue questions. Pray peace for our hearts.
