A Frightful Saturday

I am one tired mama. I am both sleep-deprived and emotionally drained. I'm going to try and make this a quick post, and not go into too much detail. Let me start by saying Brice is doing well, still out of it a bit, but acting more like himself. "Well?" you ask yourself. We had a visit to the ER at Legacy Salmon Creek, which turned into a visit to the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) at Legacy Emanuel Hospital . To make a long story short, Brice was vomiting profusely in a very short period of time and then became very un-responsive. The vomiting itself didn't really worry me too much, but when he began to "fall asleep" so suddenly...I got very worried.

We had Ryder and I told him to get his shoes on and told Aaron "We're going to the ER. Hurry!" The whole way to the ER i'm trying to keep Brice awake. I've never seen him like that before. Looking back on it now, I would describe it as his losing consciousness almost. We got to the ER, I by passed the line of people and stated what was going on. They got me back pretty quick, but when it's your baby, it feels like forever. Once back in a room, they left me alone for probably 5-10 minutes, i'm thinking "Where's the darn nurse?!" Well, probably not in those nice of words, but it's a family blog. So they did finally decide to put us in a room with monitors to hook Brice up to...you think?! So we're in there, he's fussing up a storm, winding down on the crying (he was being poked and prodded for blood that just wouldn't come out) and then would just seem to fall asleep. He just seemed so tired. Looking back I would now say it was more like he was losing consciousness.

We were able to rouse him out of it, only to have him fuss and go out of it again. The doctor in ER seemed to think he was having seizures. Those of you that know me well know that I am very familiar with what various types of seizures look like because of my dog Casey. There was nothing that looked anything remotely like a seizure to me. The decided to do an x-ray of his abdomen to make sure nothing was going on in the intestines and then did a CT scan of his head to make sure everything there was okay. They were going to move us to Emanuel, which is the Children's hospital in Portland and I believe connected to the Ronald McDonald house if you're familiar with that. Basically, the best place for him to go. SO he and I rode via ambulance (my first time) to Emanuel and Aaron followed in his car. Just before going they gave him phenobarbital. I'm familiar with this drug, as it's what Casey took for her seizures. I don't like it. But when they are worried about seizures, and it's in your baby, you pretty much agree. Now, I wouldn't. After some research, we could have gone without and monitored a bit more.

The trip to Emanuel was uneventful, thankfully. They took us to PICU and got him all hooked up to monitors. We talked with the doctor about the potential risk for meningitis and other viruses, so they recommended a spinal tap. We went ahead with that - a few hours later we found out it was all okay. PICU was pretty uneventful, thankfully. He slept mostly because of the drugs. They ended up giving him some antibiotics just in case. He also had some Zolfran for nausea and vomiting at ER and something else in the PICU - too many drugs for a little guy if you ask me. But it couldn't be avoided. Sunday morning we talked with the pediatric neurologist and she agreed with me, it didn't seem like (From my description) that he was having seizures...but none-the-less, because I have abnormal EEG's (I have migraines) we are going to go ahead and do one on him...but even if it is abnormal, it doesn't mean he is having seizures.

After getting home yesterday and doing some research, i've basically come to the conclusion that he had an allergic reaction to soy. I found out that his rice cereal, which he had had twice yesterday, has soy in it. I'm not sure why I didn't see this, because if I had, I would have never bought the Gerber Rice Cereal. Really, what are they doing putting soy (and the second ingredient) into baby food?? That is just irresponsible. Soy is so bad for us, and especially not good for babies. I am so upset at this. Some of how i've come to my conclusion of this:

1. Around 3pm he had had a few bits of rice cereal but didn't seem interested. Shortly after this, he had VERY red cheeks..and they were not just like he was flush. It was more like a rash. But otherwise he was fine.

2. At around 6:30pm he had a few bites of rice cereal again (freshly mixed with freshly pumped milk) and didn't seem interested, so we stopped. Aaron took him for me while I did something... and next thing I know he's telling me he vomited. And he did that again 2 more times, totally emptying his stomach, before we left for the ER. He also began to lose conciousness and it was very difficult to keep him awake. And it was almost like he wasn't there when I was talking to him and trying to keep him awake...he was just not with it.

3. A family friend with a son that is allergic to soy had almost the SAME thing happen to him before they found out he was allergic to soy. He had a grand-mal seizure, so at least we didn't have that, but he also had vomiting, loss of consciousness (just like I saw in Brice), the rash, etc.

So I really feel like it was a sever allergic reaction to the soy. Come to find out, soy allergies are most common in infants and develop around 3 months of age. "It is also believed that introducing foods containing soy before 6 months of age can increase the risk of infant soy allergy." They say to start a new food and go with it for a week to see how they react, well this was only the 4th or 5th time he'd had rice cereal...so that is pretty consistent with developing an allergy. It's like it built up in his system. Luckily, I already read labels for soy because of my hypothyroidism (soy = not good for absorption of thyroid) and because I don't think it's good for anyone anyways.

Next doctor visit i'm going to talk with her about some allergy testing for him. I'm sure lots of things will show up, but it would be nice to see if soy is something he has a problem with. I just hope this doesn't happen again. It is the scariest thing to think you are losing your baby. It was the longest 5 minute drive to the hospital, thinking he's going to go out and not come back. It's been a hard day waiting for all the drugs to wear off enough to just see a glimpse of your little boy again.

He is doing well and he is pretty much back to himself again. He's still a bit irritable (phenobarb probably) and is having some stomach pains (antibiotic). I hope a few more days will see it clear out of his system. I am tired and still a bit stressed and hope to get more sleep tonight. I have him sleeping next to me and will probably do that for a week or so...i'm just not ready to have him go back to his crib. I need to be able to make sure he's still breathing at night and okay. It just wears me out and upsets me all over again. I'll make sure to post updates frequently so you can all see that he is doing okay. *Phew* Long post! **Pictures were taken today.**