A Constant Source Of Joy And Worry

This week has been a bit of a rough week.  In part because we've been very busy.  I don't do well with being overly busy, it aggravates me.  On top of our regular schedule, we've had several doctors/therapist appointments, school projects, Enoch's birthday to celebrate, Parent-Teacher Conferences, a baby shower, a family Halloween party and family pictures... as well as a boy keeping us at night with a high fever, another boy with Pink Eye, and a broken toilet due to someone's beloved toy cars being flushed down it.  With all of these things keeping us running around, I feel like I'm falling further and further behind on my list of things to do, which further exasperates me, but ultimately, the building stress of Jordan not eating well is what is really getting to me.  This is his fourth week on his appetite stimulant and I was hoping that by now we would be seeing some improvement.  We're not.  Our GI told us that his current intake qualifies as malnourishment and that we need to be getting more volume into Jordan... instead of 3- 5oz bottles a day, like he was regularly getting in China, he wants us to get him to take 5- 8oz bottles.  Much easier said than done.  As we've attempted to increase the volume of food we get into Jordan, it's becoming more and more obvious that his stomach is not emptying like it should and he has started vomiting like Mason used to.  *Huge sigh*  Few things can be more maddening than putting your heart and soul into getting a kid to eat, only to have him puke it all back up.  We know from past experience that an appetite stimulant won't work if the last meal is just sitting in the stomach, and putting more into an already full stomach just backfires.  Thankfully I was able to get in touch with the GI who was willing to listen to me and prescribed the Delayed Gastric Emptying medication without making us go in for another visit, but our insurance requires us to use a mail order pharmacy, so actually getting the medication is a process and we've had several hang-ups in getting it sent out... another frustration for the week.  But I think we finally have it all worked out so, hopefully, we'll have the medication next week and get the little guy's digestive track working a little bit better.

All of this has made me think back to when Mason's GI issues were at their worst.  I've gone back and re-read some of the blog posts I wrote at the time and recalling how hard it was brought tears to my eyes.  I guess I was just feeling a great deal of empathy for my old self.  We went through some rough times without the luxury of the knowledge and experience we have now.  Before we figured out what was going on with Mason, I wrote that he was "a constant source of joy and worry".  The same can be said of Jordan now.  I worry a lot about getting him the nutrition he needs to grow but he is such an incredible joy too and the more he relaxes, the more of his fun personality we get to see.  I love his scrunched up "cheese" face and the way he nods, smiles and raises his eyebrows like we're sharing an inside secret whenever we reach an understating, and I adore his little obsession with cars and how he says c-aaah-r all day long in his funny little voice.  The kid makes us smile.  We're going through a stressful period with his eating, but we know that things can get better.  I'm just feeling a bit impatient.  But look at this kid... he is so worth it!!

 

  

P.S.  I'm going to start phasing my knitting blog back into a knitting blog and just use our private family blog for family posts.  If we actually know you "in real life", and you'd like an invite, just leave a comment with your email address and I'll add you to that blog :)