OMG

Right. I’m so tired right now I can barely think what to type. I know what I want to impart, but it seems awfully complicated to get it out of my head.

My oldest daughter’s youngest son, Ryker, has not been gaining weight. She’s changed his formula a couple times, called the medical help line several times since there are precious few doctors in her area, and I think she was hoping that he would gain once he started on solid food. In October, when I was there, I was concerned, and mentioned it, but he had started baby food, and it was staying down, and his formula was staying down if you fed him food first. Mostly, though, he would spit up most of the formula he was fed, regardless of the brand. She could have taken him to a hospital sooner, but as I said, I think there was denial and a hope that he’d start to grow.

Then, this past weekend, he started throwing up his solid food hours after he had eaten. In fact, he threw it up in his sleep, which is horribly dangerous. So on Monday, she took him to the second-closest hospital, since the first closest one is inept at best. The doctor she saw said Ryker needed to see a pediatrician, asked if my daughter had a car (she doesn’t), and when he found out her only transportation is the bus, which takes about 3 hours to get from there to here, stopping at every back yard along the way, he popped her and the baby into an ambulance and sent them to the hospital just down the street from me. She called me in a panic, I called work and said I couldn’t come in, and met them at the hospital.

Poor little scrawny pants wasn’t even 10 pounds at 9 months of age. Not cool. So tiny, so thin, so not good. One of the nurses or whoever was getting all the relevant info, and encouraged feeding as long as he was looking for food, and he took over 16 ounces, which shouldn’t even fit in his tiny tummy. The doctor came in later, said that wasn’t a great idea, but he actually kept most of it down, to everyone’s surprise. They put him on a schedule of 2 or 3 ounces every 4 hours, then 4 oz every three, and then 6 every three.

His bloodwork came back mostly normal, calcium a little high but that might be because his blood volume is low. Hard to know. They want to rule out cystic fibrosis because it’s a possibility, but he seems to be thriving on the Similac the hospital is feeding him. They’ve also given him enzymes, which seem to have made his system go crazy insofar as absorbing nutrients goes. On his first day, he gained 4 ounces of weight in 24 hours. After having the enzymes, he gained 10 oz (went from 4385 grams to 4665) in 12 hours. He now weighs over 10 pounds.

It looks like he’s going to be in the hospital for the New Year as well as Christmas, but he’s doing really well. It would be nice to know why he wasn’t gaining with the feeding he was getting at home, but he’s certainly turning around. His brother is a tank, who eats and grows like there’s no tomorrow.

In any case, it’s meant that I’ve lost a couple of my pre-Christmas days, since instead of doing things I needed to do, I was at the hospital. And I have to work on the 24th until 2 pm and then was looking at having to drive to Halifax to pick up my #2 daughter to bring her home. Today, my boss asked if I had sorted out #2 Daughter for tomorrow, and when I said I hadn’t  and that I’d probably drive in, she called a limo company to find out if there was a car coming this way from the city tomorrow and could they pick up my daughter. The end result is that she’s paying for a car to pick my daughter up and bring her home, so I can actually get some stuff done tomorrow after work. It’s about an hour drive from here, so that’s very cool, and a wonderful Christmas present.

In addition, I had my three-month review which went very well, and she gave me a very decent raise and options to earn more doing other duties. I like the idea. I’m quite happy to help fill in on the front desk, so they can have meetings and such with everyone at once. It’s all good. I like my boss. She rocks!!

So…I’m off right now, falling over with tiredness. I was awake until 2 in the morning and had to be up at 6 and at work at 7 this morning, and then nine clients between 7 and 2 pm, and what I do is physically very demanding. Especially my last guy today who is in a wheelchair (he has a form of muscular dystrophy), and takes some effort to get him from the chair to the massage table and back. Long day. And then some last minute shopping, including hitting the liquor store for wine and rum, and the grocery store for some stuff, and I had to go to the motor vehicle office and renew my driver’s license because it expires on my b’day, and OMG I need to rest.

Blessings, and I’ll do my best to drop in on my b’day.