Ups and Downs

The past two days have been a bit of a roller coaster ride for us and, as many of you know, I HATE roller coasters!

It all started Saturday night after the move into our 3rd room. Ethan started crying uncontrollably and we couldn't really figure out why. I know many of you are probably thinking "that's just what babies do", but this was more like a "I'm in excruciating pain and you need to fix it" kind of cry. It was horrible to see him that upset and not be able to help him! Sometime that evening he began passing some major gas, so we chalked it up to tummy troubles. We all went to bed and he woke up every hour, on the hour, crying that same pained cry.

Then came yesterday. Ethan was fussy in the morning, then the pooping started. He had not had a bowel movement since Thursday evening, so you can just imagine what it was like to change that first diaper! From there, he gave us about 4 dirty diapers in 2 hours. At that point the doctors began scratching their heads and said "You know, maybe this is nothing more than a nasty stomach virus" (i.e. "The Ninja Virus"). They sent his stool off to be tested and put us on "contact isolation", meaning everyone who came into the room had to wear a gown and gloves. Ethan remained inconsolable for hours. He didn't sleep, he didn't want his Soothie. Sometimes he wanted to be held, sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he wanted to be swaddled, sometimes he didn't. Techniques that provided relief one time didn't work the next. Around 9:00 I finally broke down. I felt helpless and was worried for my son.

Enter Nurse Shannon. I'm pretty sure she was a God-send. She came in, picked up Ethan, and rocked him to sleep. All the while she talked to us about how important it is to get rest so that we can be strong for him during times like these. She reminded me that I'm not a failure, that it's not my fault all of this is happening to Ethan. She spent about 20 minutes with us, which is HUGE considering she had 3 other patients to tend to.

Not long after that, Ethan was sleeping soundly in his bed and we were making the move to our 4th, and hopefully final, room. I had noticed earlier in the evening that 5324 was vacant, and BIG. I asked Nurse Shannon what she thought about us moving, and she made it happen within minutes. Ethan slept through the whole thing and only woke up once during the night.

It's amazing what a good night's sleep and a bigger room can do for a person. I think we finally feel like we're in a room that's manageable for the next 3 weeks. Ethan is a much happier baby today, too. I'm pretty sure he exhausted himself yesterday and has been sleeping the day away.

A team from the PCICU came in about 2 hours ago to try again with placing the PICC line. We're still waiting on the results of the x-ray to confirm if they were successful or not. I hope everyone is done poking him for a while!

Hopefully you made it to the end of this super long update! The stool sample came back negative, by the way, so feel free to come visit without worrying about getting attacked by the Ninja.