Revisiting Reflux

Last night David had a rather significant episode of reflux. I'm not sure if they are teething or not, but I am sure that both Mary Louise and David have been a little out of sorts lately...

They have been refusing solids again over the past 4 days or so. They have been increasing their bottle intake and also refusing their sippie cups that I had begun to really introduce and move towards in an effort to rid the house of 1. night feedings and 2. bottles over the next couple of months. We'll get back to the sippie schedule when they are feeling better...

So last night, I was resting next to David after a very rough few hours. He would wake and seem uncomfortable every so often and I ended up just falling asleep next to him at one point. It was about 4am, he started to fuss, then cough, then gag. I sat him up and he continued, spitting up a few times, coughing, retching and finally settling back down. I gave him a dose of Zantac and the gagging, etc. didn't happen again. He did, however, have a low to moderate fever throughout the day today.

I had been weaning them off of the Zantac very slowly. When they came home, they were on .5mls up to 3 times a day with extra medications available on the really bad days (mostly for David). They are now down to about .3mls 4 to 5 times per week at night. The dose they are taking now theoretically shouldn't do anything at all - but if you recall during their NICU stay, this was typical of the weaning process of every single one of their medications. I have attempted to get them off of the Zantac completely twice. They can go for up to a week without incident before starting again.

From what I understand, reflux related to intubation (i.e. muscular damage of the esophageal valve) can creep up at any time - even years after stopping medications. So it is something we are on the lookout for all the time.

My sweet David did scare me though. He got very pale after this episode. I watched him for a few minutes to ensure proper airway clearance and oxygen exchange. He began to "pink up" almost immediately really but my good ole' fear was back and in full effect. I couldn't help but flashback to the NICU days when he and Mary Louise would alarm or turn blue during a feeding, holding, or heck, a staring!

Of course, this whole thing could be blamed on the almighty teething that seems to be a constant with them, reflux, or a little viral bug. They have never been sick - nary a sniffle nor ear infection - so this would be a first here for David. Mary Louise had a questionable bout of Roseola a couple of weeks ago - that could have been a skin irritation due to our use of Skin-So-Soft prior to our early morning Saturday run...either way, this (so far) and her rash / run down day or 2 have been amazingly mild and minimal- I mean, we don't even really know that they had or have anything at all! They are playing as always - just a tad fussier and clingy - and as I mentioned before, it's been quite hard to entice them to eat anything other than their breast milk. (and for now, I'm ok with that).

Anyhow, we've had an exciting and busy few days getting a few more things done at the old house and having Uncles Collin (who is in from Medical School for a few days) and Kyle, and Mommom here for the weekend. The sale of the old house is moving along slowly. All is set to close though and we've not hit a significant bump with the inspections or appraisals as of yet. As always, the babies thoroughly enjoyed their visit with their uncles and Mommom (and I was all too excited to squeeze in a nap or 2!)

Mary Louise has really taken off with her walking. David is still quite timid about it and would much prefer to crawl. Mary Louise however, is beginning to choose to walk a few steps first before lowering herself down to a crawl. I definitely have to be on my toes at all times with them. For instance, as I'm sitting here, Mary Louise was going somewhere she shouldn't, I reprimanded her, she turned, laughed at me, and kept right on going. I made my point after the second time, but they are constantly testing us these days. I love their everlasting curiosity about their environment though. It makes for some really fun moments with such mundane every day items around the house...a basket of laundry is such a favorite.

Hopefully, David especially but both in general will be back up to par soon and we'll get back to exploring new eats and treats at meal time...which reminds me...(Granny, this is for you!) - we now have (and use) HIGH CHAIRS!!! I've bucked the conventional system of doing things for months as they were very small and just didn't have the attention span to sit and eat. I felt they were ready recently, ordered a couple of chairs, and voila - family meal time! It has been a really fun transition for us and for them and we are truly enjoying the new routine!

Must run - they are having a fuss!

xo,
Heather