I have been meaning to wrote this up through the week but with sick kidlets getting worse that became a distant memory !
Ok the heading ain't that great but c'mon I was trying to make it sound interesting ...
So here goes, about Master G !
He was born in the wee hours of Thurs 9th August '07 ( 9/8/07 very cool birthdate ! ) after a fairly long yet wonderful labour that I fought hard to acheive after a traumatic experience with Boof. So all was wonderful we were all on a high, nothing could go wrong ... Or so I thought !
We left hospital on Friday after we were both given a clean bill of health ... I assumed that our feeding problems were due to my inexperience ( I 'failed' with Boof due bad advice & being unsure of myself like most first time mothers ! ) & because we were getting to know each other & figure things out. I continued telling myself this for a good week until we realised something wasn't right but the CHN who came to our home visit advised I just needed to feed him more & things would happen, he was dehydrated but not to stress at this point. I had great friends this time round who gave great support & advice about breastfeeding but I still couldn't get him to feed right. I couldn't understand it !
After a few weeks of tears & screaming on both our parts I sought help through my local CHN clinic who found him to be even more so dehydrated this time, advised me to top up with formula due to this & spoke with a LC who came out to see us a few days later. She was lovely & ended up spending 3hrs with me even though it was only meant to be a 1hr slot because I guess she saw how distressed both of us were. She was very concerned with the way he would feed, pulling off, arching, screaming, refusal etc so of course Reflux was looking very likely. She was worried that yet again he was dehydrated & that I would be best using formula top ups until I could see a doctor to get his reflux sorted.
The doctor we saw at first refused to give us any medication saying that I was best to use some reflux strategies ( keeping him upright, change my diet etc ) & that while he was dehydrating & losing weight like he was I needed to use an AR formula then I was to come back at least weekly unless he dehydrated again ... I blindly went along with this, he was a doctor he knew best right !
We ended up having G in being force fed, syringe fed or on an IV a number of times but often I refused to take him in because of the way we were both treated. I was treated like a mother who was either insane or making her baby sick & I was beside myself. After a few weeks of this the doctor finally gave G some Zantac which helped a little for a few weeks but then seemed to stop when again because he was losing more weight & dehydrating the finger was being pointed at me. His 8wk vaccinations rolled up & before I could even ask about whether he should have the new Rotavirus oral vax due to his Reflux issues this doctor shoved it in his mouth & then proceeded to jab him with the needles & somehow managing to bodge them so that G bled for over 2hrs from one wound site & cried non-stop. This doctor then turned to me after all of this & just doing a so called physical on him & asked me whether he was a boy or a girl ... I was horrified !
I walked out of that office quite beside myself !
A few hours later G still hadn't stop crying & screaming, his legs had swelled up, he wouldn't let us touch his legs & he started to make himself pass out. He then stopped moving his bowels for days on end.
Another few weeks passed, G was now vomitting all the time & across rooms with ease. He looked grey & was either screaming or out to it for hours on end. So I proceeded to beg this doctor for a referral to a Paed ... I have no idea why I trusted this doctor to even pass me onto someone who could even be somewhat trustworthy but I was distraught & my baby needed help.
This Paed basically told me it was all my fault & that I was the problem & that my almost 4mth old had behavioural issues ... I refused to seek any help after that.
I somehow managed a few more weeks, tried various other formulas etc until DP dragged me down to the g.p he had started seeing & who we have come to now trust who basically took one look at me then G & referred us on to another Paed for an immediate appointment.
This new Paed seemed ok because he couldn't believe that G was only on the dosage he was on of Zantac so upped it immediately & gave me a plan for what else I could do as it was nearing Christmas & of course he would soon be on holidays. I felt relieved & happy that someone was doing something ! But was worried about the feeding issues but was advised it would settle once we got the Reflux sorted. Ok.
Early January saw a baby that didn't scream as much but was still often dead to the world & that's the best way to put it, he still wasn't gaining any of the weight he lost, was sweating all the time & was spewing bucket loads even hours after feeds. He was still refusing a lot of feeds so I was syringing what I would in even though it mostly came back up ! I kept thinking every time I changed a pooey nappy that something wasn't right but I didn't know what.
We saw the Paed again & this saw him tell me not to worry about his bowels but that we could go onto a prescription formula called Elecare & see how that went.
At first this seemed to work brilliantly & all our troubles looked to be in the past ! G was gaining weight like you wouldn't believe, he was still screaming most nites though & was now pooing at least 5 times a day which was thick dark green sludge. I was told this was normal & that if I felt neccessary I could try Losec for the Reflux pain.
Within hours of him having Losec he screamed & became a writhing mess. Over the next few weeks we had gone backwards & he was losing weight again, dehydrating, sweating & down right miserable. I was told this wasn't possible & that all these symptoms that I kept coming back with can't all be happening & was now going back to where I started & being told that I was either imagining it or that I was making him sick.
He was now also coughing & had a rattling, wet sound in his chest along with pooing up to 15 times a day. This wasn't normal !
I spent the majority of Febuary & early March going backwards & forwards to this Paed begging for help. I had a great friend who came along most of the time now for support who had started trying to get me to think of taking G to a Pediatric Gastroenterologist who was at the time watching me go through something similar to what she too had gone through but couldn't push me but after one appt she was so furious with the way I was treated & the mess that G had become & me along with him that she made an appt for us !
The Paed had rolled his eyes through the entire appt & made me feel like crap yet again. I ended up crying after getting frustrated with him & he then seemed to feel sorry for me *roll eyes* which saw him write out a letter for me to take to the local hospital if things got bad enough over the next few nites but
" I probably wouldn't need it because most stressed out mums find that just having this type of letter in their bag makes them get through those hard nite " .... I wanted to kill him.
Problem with seeing the GI was that appt wasn't until September because this GI is so flat chat, I cried my eyes out wondering how I would cope.I wasn't sleeping & I needed help yet no one would listen to me when I said something was wrong with him so I honestly started belieiving it was me. It was all my fault.
By the middle of March I was beside myself & upon advice from a few friends I had made on the net after hunting down those who could understand my stress I decided that a trip to the Childrens Hospital was my last option to get heard, the GI I had the appt with actually worked within the hospital as well as privately so I had a good chance of at least getting an earlier appt which was my aim !
Wow this is becoming a saga so I will continue this next time !
