Oh what a night

Saturday 12:45 am and the night nurse woke me up to tell me that something came back identifying one thing that is going on.  The summary ... on Wednesday while in the ER, he started a strange, very strange diarrhea.  I asked about a stool sample then as I thought he might have a GI related bug.  They said yes but then ended up not doing it for some reason.  Then it escaped my head (all the other things were more critical).  But I even mentioned it here and on Facebook that I thought he had a stomach bug. 

Mama is right.  He has "c-diff" which is a fungal infection of the gi tract, highly contagious and can be quite serious or it can be nothing but a lot of diaper changes. It can cause the stomach pains he's been complaining about.  Oh and hand sanitizers don't kill this.  Only good old fashioned scrubbing or bleach.  I read that it can live on surfaces up to 5 months!  So it's often picked up while in the hospital.  If you type in that word and google it, you'll see quite a bit about it.  Or here is a quick link ... http://www.gihealth.com/html/education/cdifficileRecurrent.html

After the people leave the room, Manny always calms right down.  But this time he did not.  I tried to comfort, hold, console, etc.  and he was ANGRY.  He kept telling *me* "all done" and just was pitching a huge fit (first I've experienced with him).  He just couldn't get it together.  It's just all too much for this precious little person.  I finally just laid him down and went to lay down on the bed that is right beside his crib. 

I couldn't comfort him so I could only pray for him.  Often I can "feel" what others are feeling when I pray for them.  As I did, my heart broke.  I could feel he was angry with me for letting them do all this stuff to him, for not stopping any of it.  I know he'll get over it.  But for now, all I could do is ask God to speak to Manny's spirit and to come and be his Comforter since I could not.  Exhausted and getting hoarse, he eventually stops crying and drifts to sleep. 

3:30 am ... his iv is not flushing.  It has air in it.  They try desperately to save it since he has basically no findable veins.  But it leaks.  She pulls the IV.  By this time it's 3:45 and she is supposed to draw labs at 5am anyway.  So she does it now instead. 

If the labs are bad, we're staying of course.  If they're good, there's some gray area now that they know what he has.  I have a feeling they are going to want to keep him again due to the high likelyhood of dehydration with this c-diff.  My guess is they'll want to see if they can get it better under control before he leaves. Also, sometimes feeds make it worse so they might try pedialyte in the jtube to see if he can tolerate that first, then go back to feeds.  If that's the case, we stay too. 

So my guess ... we'll be here another night.  So far, my Mama gut radar has been right on.  Hoping I'm wrong this time.  

4:45  Potassium is back ... normal.  Everything was in range except the blood sugar which is now too high.  (And he's not been on anything to bring that up in 36 hours or so.)  The doc said we could leave the IV out (since they couldn't find a vein anyway).  And we're not out of here.  They switched him to pedialyte in the jtube to see if that would help control the diarrhea.  (And since he's not tolerating feeds by their definition, we're here.)  They also stopped the antibiotics.  But they want to do a repeat chest xray to see what is going on now.  There was some dispute about what was in his lungs before ... and if it's pneumonia, they of course have to put him back on IV antibiotics. 

Guess what else?  He has stopped SCREAMING.  Maybe it was the IV this whole time?

And I just had to share.  Child Life brought him this crib mobile that has fish and water in it.  It's cool because he is just strong enough to push the button himself.  He likes to do that to go back to sleep after the people come in and disturb him.  Well the batteries are starting to go and I feel like I'm in sloooow motion or something.  Kaley (11) uses the word "Wonky" to describe things like this.  Can't wait until the batteries die completely. 

So I just have to say ... I came in Wednesday morning thinking this could be handled as an outpatient thing (what I was told).  Now here I am on Saturday with no clear escape plan.  I feel like my life is "wonky" right about now.  And the only solice is that here at the hospital, we have air conditioning.