Much Needed Update!

Hi, all! I apologize for the somewhat vague and cryptic update earlier today. Rebekah was admitted to Greenville Memorial around midnight last night, and the first room we were in did not have enough internet signal for me to access the blog. So, I had to send a post from my cell phone and I was allowed only 160 characters. I was trying to be as brief and informative as I could get into 160 spaces!! :)

Rebekah is doing much better this afternoon, but we still have not found the cause of her distress. When we arrived at the ER yesterday evening, Rebekah was retching badly, not taking a bottle and beginning to become dehydrated. After some quick tests to rule out the flu and a few other things, the doctors decided to admit Rebekah to see how she did overnight. We ended up in the PICU because there were no beds on the general pediatric floor, and I was thankful that we were in the PICU. From midnight until about 5:00 am, Rebekah was very fussy and had several severe bouts of retching; so much so that she was having a hard time keeping her oxygen levels up and had to be put on oxygen. The doctors started IV fluids to keep her hydrated, and we attempted to give her the normal continuous feed that she would have gotten through the night at home, only at half the amount (13 cc's an hour instead of 26). In about thirty minutes, Rebekah's stomach became very swollen and hard as a rock. The x-ray technicians were called to do an x-ray to check for obstructions and placement of the g-tube. By the time they got to Rebekah's room about 45 minutes later, the swelling had dissipated and the x-rays were normal. So, the doctors decided to discontinue the feeds until further tests could be done today, and we finally got to sleep around 5:30. If this post tends to ramble and make no sense, I'm blaming it on lack of sleep! :)

Rebekah has not had any feeds today, either by bottle or by g-tube. She developed a fever this morning (101.5 was the highest) and has continued to need a small amount of oxygen to keep her sats in an acceptable range. Around 2:00, Rebekah and I went downstairs to radiology to have a contrast study done to check again for any obstructions or g-tube problems, and the doctor was not able to find anything wrong. So, now we are waiting to hear back from the pediatric surgeons to find out what they want to do next. Rebekah seems to be resting comfortably and has been sleeping off and on for most of the day. It seems that we will be taking this hospital stay one day at a time to see what happens next.

We are now in a room on the general pediatric floor, and I have internet now (obviously! :). So hopefully I will be able to keep everyone more up-to-date on how Rebekah is doing. Hopefully we will be able to get a little more sleep tonight than we did last night.

Nancy