Vomit

I know, I know - great title to start a post, right? But, seriously, this was the best and most accurate way to describe this last week. And all I can say is YUCK!

This week was supposed to be full of appointments for our little guy (genetics, cardiology, neurology) since he was out of the hospital and over his RSV and lowered platelets. But instead, it was full of the stomach flu which hit our house in a HUGE way. Yuck again!

On Monday morning around 12:00 AM, I was awoken to the unmistakable sounds of heaving coming from the kiddos room. I ran in to find Gwen vomiting all over her bed, and I quickly grabbed her and rushed her to the bathroom. After a few more rounds of vomit, a good thorough clean-up, and lots of hugs, I put Gwen in bed with me and tried to drift off to sleep (Nate was at work at the time). I guess that I should have known better than to assume that I would be able to fall back to sleep because about an hour later I heard a loud wail come from the kids room and ran in to find Beckham sobbing. I picked him up and stuck him in my bed just in time to see him start the vomiting process. Luckily, I am a vomit expert (seriously...and sadly) and I was prepared with a bowl and a towel. As I caught his puke, of course, Gwen decided that it was time for her to start puking again, and I turned and caught her puke as well. Now, I don't know about you, but I think I deserve and award for catching two sets of puke at the same time. That really is talent! The puking lasted about another hour until Nate got home, at which time, I handed him a kid, and we each slept with one through out the night, and caught puke as it came. Yuck, a third time.

The kiddos stomach flu lasted for the next couple of days, and by Wednesday, I was puking my guts up as well (lovely). Yuck, a fourth time. I guess that I just could not let the kids take part in all the fun and not get involved, right? I am now feeling much better and so is little Gwen. Beck, on the other hand, is still a little queasy and sporadically pukes, and has no appetite (I actually just cleaned up his puke a half hour ago...so lucky!). We are hoping that this will soon end as he is down a pound (he weights 26 lbs as of today), and we want to avoid the hospital. Labs were drawn today and showed that his hemoglobin, platelets, and white blood count is stable - so great considering that he caught a virus so soon after his last one - but his electrolytes are a little on the low side, so we will have to keep pushing fluid.

On the upside of things (this has nothing to do with vomit), we did at least make it to one appointment - Genetics - which was extremely positive. The Genetics doctor was sure that, given Beck's huge history, that he would have some sort of underlining Genetics defect, but he does not. All of his tests came back negative for any sort of defect! There is still one more test to run, but the doctor is pretty sure that it will come back negative as well. If it does, she said that our chances of having another baby with Beck's heart defect is 1%, which if you add that to the 5% chance that everyone has of having a baby with a defect, that puts us at 6%. Wow! So great! No yuck to that! Now all we have to do is have the courage to have another baby. Hmmm.....easier said than done!

That's it for now from the land of vomit! Let's hope and pray that this next week will bring a much sweeter and more pleasant title than this one.

-Beckham and Co.