Shameless beg for compliments.

Aren't these cute?

Eight Days in the Hospital!

When we went to the pediatrician for Mila's 6 month checkup, we very loudly voiced our concerns about her eating habits. Since said pediatrician was going on vacation for several weeks, he agreed to see us again in two days, and if her weight had changed, he would admit her.

Eight days in the hospital. Holy cow. And what was accomplished was NOT what I wanted. First came the swallow study. Mila sat in a chair in front of an XRAY machine set up to video flouroscopy. I then fed her liquids of varying thicknesses - thin, nectar, and honey. The technician stopped us after just a few sips of " thin ", saying it wasn't safe. Apparently, she gets very close to aspiriating, with laryngeal penetrations, and sinus pooling. Um. Ick. She did better on nectar consistancy, but did start to have laryngeal penetrations as she got tired. The honey consistancy was so thick that she was gulping air. She did just fine on solids, thank goodness!

After the swallow study, she had a PH probe done. What a waste of our time! They put the probe in at 10am, and at 4ish, the probe malfunctioned. It was 6:30 by the time they were able to replace the probe ( which, by the way, involves greasing a tube, placing it in the nose, and sliding it down the throat... then you wait for the baby to gag, and push it farther down, into the stomach. Next, you take an xray to make sure its in the stomach and not in the lungs ). They removed it at about 10am the next morning. Except that they only got 16 hours of usable test. And she was SLEEPING FOR MOST OF IT. We already KNOW that she's not refluxing at night! The few hours during the day did show reflux, but because it was only a few hours here and there, they labeled the test as " normal ". What a crock!

The next day, she had an endoscopy. I can't tell you anything other than the next time anyone takes my daughter and sedates her, I will be giving them VERY CLEAR AND LOUD instructions as to what she is and IS NOT allowed to have. NO WHERE did I authorize them to FEED HER. Especially UNTHICKENED SUGAR WATER WHILE LYING FLAT ON HER BACK, HALF UNCONCIOUS FROM SEDATION. I don't know WTF they were thinking, or where they got the idea that this was allowed, but in no way, shape or form did I find this acceptable. The endoscopy, btw, twas " normal " as well, but we are waiting on the biopsies to rule out eosophilic esophagitus. I am sure that I mangled that.

EE is a allergic condition of the esophegus, which closely mimics that of reflux. However, sometimes it can only be diagnosed by esophegial biopsy, showing esonophils in the lining of the esophegus. The treatment is substantially differant from that of AR, and therefore, it is an important test. Mila already is on a hypo allergenic formula, but it does contain broken down proteins. This could explain why she briefly did better on the nutramigen and then got worse. It tends to go hand in hand with dysphagia ( swallowing difficulty ).

Oh, and did I mention she was drinking 24+ ounces a day in the hospital? Little poo head. Of course, yesterday she only had 16 ounces, true to form.

I am also concerned about a condition called delayed gastric emptying. While in the hospital, we kept Mila off all solids. We added solids back, and her intake went way down. DGE is much worse with solid food than liquid. It also goes hand in hand with... dysphagia and EE. The reason I am concerned with DGE is that a ) Zantac wouldn't do a darned thing for it b) Mila can puke solids literally HOURS after eating, when technically her tum would be empty c) Mila is missing most hunger cues, and can/will go HOURS on just a few ounces.

So there. Thats where I've been for the last 8 days.

And I learned to do shirring on my sewing machine. HOW COOL!

All done!

All done with Mila's dress!

I was right!

I was right! I headed to the Medicenter at 3:00 yesterday and was out by 4:00 - absolutely unheard of here in Edmonton! And on a SUNDAY to boot! The doc took one look and said " Strep. Bad. And the nurse recorded your temp at 39.2. Here is a mega dose of penicillan for 10 days." When I asked about a strep test, he said it was unnecessary: strep is going around, I have zero congestion & coughing, and my throat could be the picture in the book for strep. As it stood, he explained to me, his ability to cure me would rest on whether it was viral or bacterial, and the super fast onset with lack of cold symptoms said bacterial. And did I really want to wait for a strep test? It would be Tuesday or Wednesday before they got the results.....

HELL NO I didn't want to wait. I grabbed the penicillan, came home, took one, and stayed in bed for hours. I made Alex get me some ice cream and tea. I even made him tuck me in. I took a penicillan as soon as I got the RX filled, then another at midnight, and one at six am. And I am already feeling better. THANK GOD. All I could think of was trying to comfort Mila during her upper GI or having to reschedule it. And neither of those options was acceptable to me!

Talking about god, Alex meets with Rabbi Ari today. If my conversion papers aren't up to par, Alex and I will be switching synagogues immeadiatly. There is no reason in the world that RAbbi Ari needs to delve that deeply into them, and if he finds a problem, it will honestly be HIS loss. Alex and I are not religious, and we do not need to prove I am Jewish for any other reason than Robby's schooling. Alex is already talking about how he'll tell the Rabbi we are leaving Chabad if Ari says ONE WORD about my conversion. Gotta love the Alex :-)

So far, Robby & Mila seem to have escaped getting sick. I am hoping it stays that way!

Hippo Hats

Still going strong here at Casa De Kagan. I'm hoping this post will be fairly lucid as I'm running on very little sleep. Not Mila's fault. I seem to have caught some sort of bug that comes with a really firery throat. I'm off to the MediClinic this afternoon, because it feels like strep to me.





Mila is eating slightly less than a few days ago - down to about 20-22 ounces. I'm concentrating a few of her bottles to compensate. However, she's chowing down on the solids though. I think they are filling her up so that she doesn't WANT the super nasty tasting bottles. Her upper GI is the 14th, so hopefully we'll have some good answers then. I can still hear her refluxing, and she gets that concerned look, but she's really arching a whole lot less and sleeping a whole lot better.





Robby is very sad that camp is over. We bought his teacher a little gift and hopefully she'll use it - a gift certificate to the only kosher joint in the city. And hopefully, the Rabbi will decide I'm Jewish enough so that Robby can attend school. If he doesn't, I think I will keep Robby home through October and then return to work. I almost hope that ... Well, we won't go there! Lets just say that I wouldn't be terribly upset if I had to go to work :-)





Alex is about 1/2 way through his 13 days straight of work. His parents were supposed to come for dinner, but I think we will beg out of that so I can rest. I do need to go grocery shopping before we run out of milk. And dino oatmeal. Robby might starve :-)





Here are some reaaaaaaaaally cute pictures of Mila. Why Robby calls this her "hippo" hat, I have no idea, but it *is* awfully cute. I'm not sure if you can tell from the pictures or not, but Mila is looking like she is going to start crawling very soon!!! She rolls both ways, and has gotten her legs to make the crawling motion... We just have to work on her arm strength - she props herself up on her elbows, but she hasn't started to push her self up flat palmed yet. Robby was very much the same way, except that he had his arms in order but couldn't organize the leg movements. I expect that she'll be crawling by the time we get to Florida.

I am also reaaaaaaally enjoying my sewing. I have three projects in the works : Recon strap covers for her highchair and carseat ( the drool she produces is amazing! ), Recon bibs made from her stained onesies ( I'm not buying bibs to get stained when I have clothes that are too stained even to donate! ). Lastly, I am working on a pink and navy dress for the wedding - Alex doesn't want to spend 30+ on a dress she will very likely wear once. I can understand that, but she's finally outgrown her cute sundresses. Those she hasn't outgrown aren't really fancy enough to wear to a wedding. Hopefully, it will be nice enough.... I've learned to box pleat, pin, sew, and use binding tape.

Oh Baby!!

The lake ROCKED! Of course, we didn't know about the toxic spill from two years back until we were OUT of the lake, but honestly, we are all just fine. There was lots of plant life and snails in the water, so I don't imagine it could be terribly toxic right now. Besides, there were LOTS of people in the water for a long long time, and they'd been in for several weeks now. I hope.

Robby was the star of the party!!! He was super polite, very sweet, and totally not demanding. Everyone was having fun with him, which mean relaxation for me! There was a giant trampoline, which he loved. Its amazing how fast he caught on to the jumping up and down!!! Bounce, bounce bounce. There were a few close calls : Robby cannot do a flip ( yet ) and he isn't quite sure where the edge of the trampoline is when he's really excited. There were lots of people willing to bounce with him. First, Dr. Levy and another girl bounced with him. Then I bounced with him. Then Dawn bounced with him. Then Yanis came and bounced with him. He was pretty bouncy.

There was a seadoo. With a raft. And Robby helped to blow up the raft, as you can see by the

pictures. He was so serious about it! Up, down, up down. Sadly enough, though, he's pretty little and the tube raft was HUUUUGE! After about 5 minutes, I took over for him. That upset him GREATLY. He is a BIG BOY, doncha know, and how DARE I try to help him out!!! Mr. Independant! ( So, big boy, why can't ya wipe your own tush? Don't give me that " my arms are too short crap "... Grow up! ) (( just kidding ))

Robby was also enamored with the seadoo dock. He'd crank it up out of the water, and then lower it back down. Up, down, up down, up down. Even though the water was less than waist high, and certainly not over his head, we made him keep his life jacket on while he was playing. Up, down, up down, up down.

Mila-shka did awsome while we were there too. Unfortunetly, there was a bit of miscommunication in the morning. I thought Alex had given her the Zantac, and he thought I'd given it to her. The end result? No morning dose of Zantac. It was a good trial though. I'm betting a dollar to disney that she has both reflux AND mspi.

And oh, the saga of the missing formula! I called three safeways today. Nothing. The fourth had four cans, all of which I bought, to a tune of 68$ since it was 10% off today. Then I called the peds office to tell them the Nutramigen was helping, and the nurse offered me another three cans, free of charge. Ding Ding Ding! Jackpot! And then, to top it all of, Raelynn called and said she had some 5$ off coupons, would I like them? YES!

She's been so happy that I am in a super good mood. She's smiley and giggly, and I know you'd like pictures. But I don't have any. I will, eventually, find the camera charger. I hope.

But you can have a picture of the Mei Tai I made for her.

A Post With Thankfulness

I took Mila to the pediatrician on Friday. I was full of trepidition about going by myself with her.... I really really wanted Alex to come, but there was just no way that was going to be possible, with a gallery event that evening. I was terrified that I would be told " Oh, she's gaining weight, so she doesn't need the upper GI, and its okay that she's crying because, well, babies cry. And she's gaining weight. "

At the point, Mila had been crying for HOURS each day, miserably, writhing on the floor when left to her own devices. I could hear her refluxing, she was constipated, and although she was eating, she was miserable afterwards. It got to the point where Alex and I had to switch off holding her, because feeling helpless breeds frustration, and frustration breeds anger. And even though we knew that Mila wasn't doing it on purpose, it was very, very hard to deal with.

Dr. Raffie walked in and said " Congratulations! She's having GREAT weight gain! She's up another 5 ounces this week, bringing her to 13lbs even! 13 pounds puts her in the 13th percentile, which means she's creeping back up on the chart. This is exactly how we want her to be right now. What else is going on?"

I explained about the constant crying, the arching back & neck, the flailing and beating at the bottle. Dr. Raffie reviewed her chart, thought for a few moments, and left the room. He came back with a bottle of this : Nutramigen. He explained that it was possible that she has MSPI - Milk Soy Protein Intolerance. If she is truly allergic to milk, there is a 50% or greater chance that she is *also* allergic to soy. Rather than switch her from formula to formula, he gave us a sample can of this, and told me to call him in a few days.

I may kiss him when I see him next. OH MY GOD, the change is amazing. No crying. No writhing. Less arching. More smiles. THANK YOU DOCTOR SHARON - You fixed my kid. Now if only it wasn't 20$ for a 4 day supply, or incredibly hard to find. I am - honestly - willing to pay ANYTHING at this point for her to eat and not be in pain. I don't CARE that it smells like rancid parmesean cheese. I don't CARE that its super gritty and clogs the bottle nipple. I don't CARE that it slimes the bottle and is nearly impossible to wash out. I don't CARE that Mila sweats vaguely cheese flavour. She EATS ( Oh lordy lordy, does she eat! She's eating the right amount, with no fussing! ) . She POOPS ( Amen to pooping! Even if it smells like goat cheese baked with cat pee ). And she DOESN'T CRY ALL DAMN DAY!

Today we go to the lake, which will hopefully end in lots of adorable pictures. I'd talk about Robby, but he's sleeping. And I prefer it that way!