A Three Part Series On How We Can't Seem to Get Well

Part 1: "Small children should never vomit, much less violently."

Lydia's digestive troubles still plague our house like a reoccurring dream.  And that's the bad news.  The good news is the last set of events in the past several months has helped get the ball rolling when it comes to making her pediatrician believe that I AM NOT CRAZY and SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT WITH THIS CHILD!

It all started in late January, when (what we thought) were a series of flu viruses running rampant through our house.  We all got sick twice in two weeks time.  Lydia, however, continued to get sick week after week after week after week.  Once a week, 3AM, the crying started.  Then the coughing.  Followed by the vomiting.  The 3+ hours of strait, violent, vomiting.  This ran once a week for 4 weeks.  Week 5 and 6 brought vomiting twice a week.

Somewhere around week 3 I called the nurse on duty, explained the only symptom of vomiting- no fever, no loss of appetite, no change from her usual cranky mood.  Nurse confirmed my suspicions of a 24 hour bug.  Wait it out, keep her hydrated.  By week 6, the second week of the twice a week vomiting, I called back to say HEY!  I'm no doctor but, THIS AIN'T NO BUG!

We go in, doc checks her out and agrees with me- even though she was vomiting (VIOLENTLY!) just hours earlier, now she seemed perfectly fine.  He asks about her diet. I explain the foods that seem to offend her (because we all know how well doctors read patient's charts before hand), the reactions she has, the difficulty to feed her and how we still supplement with the REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE formula.

Apparently where Jer and I are going wrong is, we're feeding her too much fruit.  Particularly at the end of the day.  Lydia's delicate little stomach isn't handling the job of breaking down fruit very well and instead of digesting her supper after she goes to bed, it sits in her stomach.  And the fruit ferments.

SHE IS ESSENTIALLY FERMENTING WINE IN HER STOMACH!  And then vomiting it up when the gasses run out of room to expand.

Super!

So, Doc said we were to cut down her fruit intake during the day and completely cut off any fruit intake after an afternoon snack.  And under no circumstance were we to give her any more grapes.  Grapes + Lydia = BadBadBad.  Sucks for Lydie, she truly enjoys her grapes.  On top of that she is to start taking Zantac twice a day for the following 4 weeks to help heal her stomach- which he was sure with as much vomiting she was doing was probably tore all to hell.

Oh, and switch her from the blessed almond milk to lactose free dairy milk.  

To say the least, I had my sever doubts about that last part.

****to be continued****