The Dennison-Dalton family: And yet again...another hospital stay.

I had made Addison a GI appointment on Friday since she had been gagging and having constant diarrhea for a week. We ended up seeing the Nurse Practitioner again which I'm not too fond of but she didn't seem half bad this time. She asked all the normal questions. How long has she had diarrhea? How many pee diapers a day does she have? What is she eating? Blah blah. When I told her that I couldn't honestly tell her how many times she was peeing because of how many times she was pooping she went and got Dr. Al-Tawil. She had also checked her fontanelle (her soft spot) and it was a little sunken in...she was dehydrated (or getting there at least.) Dr. Al-Tawil came in and said they were going to put her on IV fluids and continue her antibiotic (she had an ear infection) and also put her on Flagyl for a few days. Which I sat there a minute and just thought "ok this is fine" but then I realized he said IV fluids and I said "crap!" Automatic hospital admittance. Ugh! Then they leave and get Dr. Cuevas in the room. Two GI doctors in the same visit?!? Nice... So I make the necessary phone calls, once crying spell, and took Addison to my office to get my stuff to be sent across the street to be admitted.

Josh meets me in admitting and they get us into a room (one of the same rooms we were in back in June when she was admitted the 1st time actually.) We ended up staying until Tuesday and two of the nurses we had actually recognized us. Sad... After doing a urine sample, stool sample, and a blood sample they still couldn't come up with why she was having diarrhea. They tried giving her different kinds of foods and different kinds of formula. She was being SOOOOOO good. She would eat or drink anything they gave her, took all her medicine with a smile, and even sat there and watched the phlebotomist prick her finger. Literally turned her head like a puppy and watched her own blood go into the vial. I about grabbed my camera and took a picture because she didn't cry at all! Finally I asked several nurses and finally convinced the Nurse Practitioner to order a celiac disease which she finally caved in and did. Thankfully a food allergy test goes along with that.

While we were in the hospital, Addison stayed in her crib for 4 nights and played with toys, watched tv, she was perfect. I was amazed and couldn't have asked for a better time for her to be so good. She didn't mind the diarrhea...even handed me a pile of it at one point. LOL (Not even kidding there.)

Then I find out today that Addison is allergic to milk and whey. That would explain why she's been having the diarrhea lately, why she had problems before most likely, and why she's had a small rash and all this going on since we've been feeding her table food. What this all means is that she can eat absolutely NOTHING that she loves. No macaroni & cheese is the big thing. :( But I'm just glad that we finally got some kind of answer and can start to work on finding things she can eat and getting her stomach issues fixed after 10 months.

Now the aggravating part...
When we were in the hospital back in June with all this and they ended up doing surgery, could this have been avoided and not even needed the surgery in the 1st place? I think so! I asked and asked several times for the doctor's to do a celiac test on her. Would it have hurt? Noooo. Even would have been covered under my insurance. So I'm definately going to be saying "uh huh, now what" to my doctor because I'm thinking if they would have just humored me and done one simple blood test then Addison's surgery and all of this could have been avoided in the 1st place. I work in a hospital. I understand that things get over looked many many times but when I asked every single doctor, nurse, nurse practitioner to have someone test her for allergies/celiac then HUMOR ME and just do it! Enough ranting and on to the pictures. :)
Standing in her crib when we first got admitted.