Remember times…

I have been thinking a lot of when Olivia was so very sick. It’s hard to believe that 2 years ago the doctors and nurses had no idea what was wrong with my precious child. I was so heart-broken when I took her to the Allergist after spending all night at the ER and still had no answers. Come to find out we took Livy to Duke Children’s Hospital in Durham, NC and they did several tests on Livy. We had been through every formula from Prosobee, Alimentium and Nutramagin and still wasn’t able to keep those down at all. We found out that she had a protien intolerance. She also come to find out had Acid Reflux and was put onto several different med’s for that. Duke’s Children’s put Livy onto Neocate (which came from the UK) and she did very well on this. She still did get sick a lot but she was in and out of daycare too.

Finally in August she was able to eat some solid fruits and that was going good until September 3rd things got pretty bad. Livy had not been able to keep her food down and she was also vomiting up Blood. Nothing you ever want to see your child do. It was really hard to her go through this. I called my mom and the doctor and told them what was going on. The doctor told me to just basically give her pedialyte but she still was only having one wet diaper a day and still not able to keep anything down including the special formula we had to give her.

Mom and I decided to pack her up and take her up to Duke’s ER and see what they had to say about it. I was so worried about my little girl that I didn’t know what to do. Mom drove us up there and we sat there not too long before they called us back. They did weigh her and for a 4 month old she was way under weight. They of course asked me a bunch of questions like if she was eating good and all which she really had never eaten really good. We tried the whole breastfeeding too but that just really didn’t work out because she was born with a pre-mature gut (her intestine’s were not fully developed). Anyways, the doctors up at Duke did several testing and couldn’t find anything and basically sent her home. So we thought everything was A OK. Wrong, Thursday of that we we took her back to the ER only it was the local ER and they admitted her. They thought that she had Rotavirus which can be deadly to an infant so she was put into a special room and all. Plus when someone would come to visit they had to basically scrub up and also put on all of the protection so that no one could get it. Good news came back and she didn’t have it but because Duke didn’t have any open beds she was sent home on Terry and mine’s 1 year anniversary, Monday, September 13th.

The next day she was still getting worse and the doctor’s office told us not to worry that she was ok but something was not right with my little girl. We rushed her back up to the ER at Duke and within 45 minutes of being there she was admitted. She got the last bed on the Pediatric floor and I was so happy. Maybe they were going to find out what was really wrong with our baby girl. She was only at that point 8lbs 9oz. She was way under weight. She was then put onto an IV with lots of Fluids and nutrition. They wanted to see if she would be able to eat anything but still nothing. They did several tests from just the normal virus tests to testing for CP or CF. Very nerve racking to a new mother. Luckily Mom was up there with me and we had to stay for 2 weeks. I even would check in with my boss at work but they could at that point careless for what I was doing. Even my best friend, Robin was cornered by our manager and asked if I was really up at Duke’s Children’s Hospital. Very disturbing if you ask me. Well come to find out the problem was Livy’s digestive tract had matured enough and her formula she was on was starving her to death. Not something you ever want to hear come from a doctor.

Well they put her onto Enfamil’s 22 calorie Formula and her weight gain began! Now we have a healthy 2 year old who weighs 32lbs. I am so happy for her and so happy that the doctors at Duke could figure out what was really wrong with my little girl!It’s amazing of how frail she really looked in the pictures I have attached. As you can tell she’s not frail anymore!!!