Friday, March 10, 2006

Update on Isaac

First things first, I finally uploaded new pictures for everyone to see.

Last week Isaac had been extremely fussy. He wasn't sleeping during the day and he wasn't eating very well either. Instead of sucking, he was doing more gnawing. Whenever we laid him down, he would wake up immediately screaming. On top of that, he was drooling a lot. Mom and I thought that he might be teething. I know it's early but it's not entirely impossible. Finally, on Thursday I went to the store to buy baby orajel only to find out that you can't give that to them until they're 4 months old, so I called the nurse help line. She told me that it sounded like an ear infection and that laying him down and sucking caused pain, so we set up an appointment for Friday morning. That night I let him sleep in his car seat and sat him up to nurse and he seemed to respond well to both. But when we got to the doctor on Friday he didn't have an ear infection, he wasn't teething and his testicles were very swollen and blue. The doctor told us at his 1 month check-up that he might have a hydroceil - basically just water around his testicles but to keep an eye out for any issues. Well, that was obviously an issue, so we were sent to the emergency room to have an ultrasound just to make sure he didn't have a hernia. As I was leaving, I kept saying "but what about the fact that he won't sleep." The doctor said that we would address that issue later but we had to get him checked out right away. The short of it, he doesn't have a hernia but they wanted us to see a urologist to have him look at it to see if we needed to do surgery to reverse the hydroceil. So, we made an appointment for Thursday the 9th.

Over the weekend, however, Isaac still wouldn't sleep well, he was constantly drooling, fussy all the time, eating more frequently and gurgling on something most of his waking hours. He doesn't spit up much, but when he does it's volumous. I'd discussed the possibility of acid reflux with his doctor when he was about a week old but she assured me that he didn't spit up enough to be concerned. But I started doing research and spit up isn't necessarily a symptom of reflux, but Isaac had every other symptom listed. I scheduled an appointment Monday afternoon with a different doctor and she said that "it is very obvious that Isaac has acid reflux." She put him on zantac and told us to wait about 3 days to start seeing an effect and to keep him sleeping in his car seat in his crib.

So, Thursday with the urologist. Basically I don't know why we bothered to go to the office. He told us the same thing that the emergency room did- he has a communicating hydroceil ( that means water travels in and out from his tummy) and that we would just keep an eye on it. If it hasn't healed itself by 6 months, they'll do surgery. The procedure would be very similar in nature to a vasectomy. It would be out-patient and supposedly non-invasive, but hopefully it won't come to that. In the mean time we have to keep watch for a hernia. If he were to develop one of those, they'd go ahead with the surgery.

Well, that's what is going on with Isaac. His medicine for his reflux doesn't appear to be working entirely. He's less fussy but still won't sleep flat on his back. Please be in prayer that it is at least preventing him from being in pain. Oh, and enjoy the new pictures of our beautiful boy.

Monday, March 6, 2006

Hospital Blues

Friday I was at school when the phone rang. Isaac had a appointment with the doctor to talk about the fact that he hadn't been sleeping very well. The doctor wanted to have him get an ultrasound on his testicles to see if that was part of the problem. Virginia wanted me to be there so I left school early to head up to Wake Med. Waiting in the children's emergency room always stinks because not only was Isaac cranky, but the time takes forever. In the end, everything was basically normal. Isaac has some sort of hydro seal on the testicles. I'm not really sure what happens from there, but I'm sure I can have Virginia update you on that soon. Be in prayer that everything works out OK.