Seemingly Simple Solution

We visited our Gastrointerology department at our local children's hospital today...again. I can't tell you how agitated I was stepping off of the elevator on the fourth floor getting ready to face this all again.

Weight was down, but he was in the 23rd %, which for Monkey Man is still good considering he used to be in the negative. After answering tons of questions and the nurse practitioner looking through all of his old files...the diagnosis seems simple. They think that he has had some viruses that have destroyed the good bacteria in his gut. Due to this, he is having diarrhea. When we put him on the BRAT diet, it aggravated it even more as he needs a high fat, high protein diet to combat the issue and bring his levels back to normal. Then going on a liquid diet (jell-o, Gatorade, and chicken broth) it got even worse because sugar would continue to destroy the bacteria. My kids don't get hardly any sugar so the huge dose all at once sent him into his tailspin.

So now he is back on dairy (they think the dairy omission this past winter was a fluke and want to see how he does on it) and lots of lean meat. What I had on hand wasn't top notch, but as you'll see in the picture before he was very satisfied with daddy's lunch meat and cheese.

I think he was just thrilled to EAT again. We also have to limit how much liquid he gets in a day. She wanted us to omit fruit juice (not a problem, my kids don't drink it...Monkey Man has had it two times in his life), sugar (also, I am so ok with this), and water. Really? Yeah, he is limited to 8 oz of water a day on top of 24 oz of milk. I had no idea a kid could drink too much water (he wasn't getting any on the liquid diet) but when she heard he drinks as much as 30 oz of water a day she almost fell off her little swivel stool.

She was worried about it that amount of water interfering with his calorie intake, but I assured her when he was eating "normally" he can pack away an entire cereal bowl (adult, not kids sized) serving of chicken and noodles or stir fry, 2-3 slices of pizza, 2-3 waffles, a full cup of quinoa plus as much ham as I will give him and veggies, serving after serving of fruits and veggies as snacks or with meals, and whole peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Please do not insult him with 1/2 a sandwich. Obviously he wouldn't eat all of that in one sitting, but those are just the serving sizes he will eat. HUGE for a 20 month old.

20 month old? Yes. *sigh* Monkey Man will be 20 months old on Saturday. Where does the time go?

I think his favorite part of the hospital trip was getting blood drawn. Because of his SPD getting his finger pricked and then blood squeezed out into three vials was downright relaxing. The phlebotomist was amazed that he didn't even flinch when the prick was done...and that he almost fell asleep as she coaxed the blood out (she had to squeeze hard and it took about 5 minutes). Sometimes Monkey Man's quirks are to his advantage!

Thanks for your prayers, we are relieved that there is a seemingly simple solution to something that was looking very scary. We have one week to see if he improves.