Tough Weekend

Nolan did VERY well after we came home from Golisano Children's Hospital. The first two days, he ate decently. On Friday evening, he ate a Go-Gurt, a tub of yogurt, a whole banana, and four small slices of pineapple.

And then he started retching.

Retching, for the uninitiated, is something that can happen to children with fundoplications. Their body tries to vomit up the food, but it can't get through the wrap. Nolan retched and retched, and then would beg for food because he was hungry. We tried giving him a taste of ice cream, and that set off the retching again. A sip of grape juice later on that evening did the same thing.

We finally put him to bed, concerned about fluids because anything touching his stomach would cause a retching episode. He actually managed to vomit up some ice cream past the Nissen wrap.

On Saturday morning, he seemed well. He didn't eat much (just a Go-Gurt), but was otherwise fine. We decided to back off solid food and focus more on the soft/pureed foods for a while. This worked well for him in the morning, and we made the decision to try a trip to the zoo that afternoon.

On the way down to the zoo, he started experiencing pain. He couldn't stand up straight when we got to the zoo. The zoo, by the way, was unbelievably crowded due to the good weather. The line in the gift shop to rent a wagon was ridiculously long and slow, so we tried to carry Nolan throughout the zoo. This didn't really work, however, so we ended up returning to the gift shop and renting a zoo wagon. He did better after renting the wagon, but was still in pain. He claimed his button and his sides hurt. There was a stop to Target on the way home to get some children's ibuprofen.

He ate 2 tablespoons of macaroni and cheese, 3 go-gurts, and a few bites of chocolate pudding yesterday. Poor little guy - he just wasn't feeling so hot.

He's doing a little better today, but had quite a bit of oozing out of his g-tube site. This is part of the healing process, but I'm keeping a close eye on it. He's eating a little better this morning - he had a go-gurt for breakfast, a go-gurt for lunch with about 1/4 cup of fruit loops in milk. He claimed he was still hungry, but we made him wait 1/2 hour for any more food to head off any retching problems. Sure enough, I gave him ice cream about 20 minutes later and he only ate 2 bites before he was "full." Pacing his food intake is tough when we know he isn't getting enough calories, but the alternative is to have retching and pain.

He took some more motrin and tylenol this morning, so we're keeping on top of his tummy pain. He's staying low-key today by playing the wii and watching movies. Hopefully he'll feel a bit better over the next few days!