18 Days

Laundry has been slow around these parts.

The need for towels and extra clothing for Christian just hasn't presented itself lately.

Eighteen days, to be exact.

Since leaving the PICU a year ago, Christian has thrown up almost every single day. At first, coming out of the hospital, it was multiple times a day, sometimes everything that was put in his stomach just came right back out. Honestly, I don't know how the boy managed to gain any wait in the first six months.

We messed with formula, every few months I changed feeding schedules, and this continued until it was just accepted that almost all of his calories would come at night. This wasn't practical or very good for him because his system couldn't rest at night. And his system would let me know half the time by telling Christian to throw up in the wee hours of the morning.

There was no rhyme or reason to it, no pattern. There was no "good" time that he would tolerate feedings. We'd change things, he'd do well, then he'd start throwing up again. It was like a kick in the stomach every time. We went through laundry loads of towels and extra clothes cleaning up after this and it got to the point where I just began to accept that this was part of our life. Fine!

But Christian has been vomit free for 18 days. Not even an attempt.

Lets back up a little. It wasn't until we met our new OT (who's not so new anymore, she's now part of our gang) that she suggested visiting a GI doctor. How simple! Where did I miss that memo?

We visited the GI doctor, he made a few simple and really doable suggestions, he prescribed an acid reflux medicine called Reniditine (to which I secretly rolled my eyes while he wasn't looking because we had already tried one in the beginning of this mess and it didn't work), and we were on our way to what was to become a solution.

We finally started it and at first it didn't seem to work. A week later...relief. Guess that good ol' GI doc was on to something.

It's not just that he doesn't throw up. It's bigger. It's that now he has most of his calories during the day and he's up to his complete recommended amount per day. This is the first time he's been there in a year. Before this, I was just trying to get as much into him as possible and loose as little as possible. No more! And he's also only getting about a quarter of his food at night. Baby steps toward something that resembles normal are so sweet.

Now, I hope I'm not jinxing things by celebrating this accomplishment, shouting it from the virtual rooftops of this blog, doing a little victory dance in my mind (and maybe sometimes in real life).

I'm cautiously optimistic.

So here's to eighteen days. May there be more vomit free days in our future!

Here, here!