Pyloric Stenosis

Last Wednesday, Aeson started spitting up after he ate. He had NEVER spit up before.. none at all. Westen, on the other hand, used to spit up SO much with every single feeding. Most of his newborn clothes were ruined from it! This was different, though.. the consistency was different. I thought maybe I ate something that wasn't agreeing with Aeson or maybe he was just starting to spit up for some reason. On Thursday, the spit up changed consistency again. By afternoon, it was more like vomiting and quite forceful. I called the pediatrician at closing time and she told me to come in anyway.. It was odd that he would just start this out of the blue. She did an exam and said he looked well otherwise (the vomiting didn't even seem to bother him at that point either). She scheduled an upper GI for the following morning and said it could be two things- pyloric stenosis, which is when the muscles around one of your stomach openings enlarge and block food from going through, or it could be acid reflux (which is what Westen had).

As Thursday night wore on, the vomiting got worse. It was so forceful and really didn't stop. I continued to feed him because he was still hungry but I hated to at the same time because he just threw everything up. It would happen multiple times between feedings. We went through several outfit changes before deciding just to wrap him in a blanket.. and then proceeded to go through every single blanket he had. I knew this was totally different than what Westen had.. and I knew if it wasn't pyloric stenosis, something else was definitely wrong. We were up pretty much the entire night. I was too afraid to go to sleep and also too worried. I knew pyloric stenosis meant surgery.. my brother-in-law and my cousin both had it- and when they had surgery, the IV had to be put in their head, which also was freaking me out. I'd also looked it up online and it was very much Aeson.. all the symptoms.

Eric decided to stay home on Friday, just in case. We took Westen to school and went for the upper GI. I wasn't able to be with him during that, so that stunk.. but at least it was nothing bad. They sent us over to the pediatrician's office right afterwards and there she told us that it was pyloric stenosis and that they don't do surgery here.. so back to the children's hospital in Peoria we would have to go. She also said the radiologist had said his colon looked dilated.. which she said wouldn't be related to the pyloric stenosis, so she didn't know if it was something else or nothing at all.

So we all rushed around.. picking up Westen to see him before leaving him once again, getting clothes and things from home, getting Westen and the house key to my sister's, etc etc. And off we went to the hospital. Aeson hadn't been able to eat since 7:30 a.m. and they said not to feed him anymore.

We got there and got checked in. The doctors came immediately. We dealt with three different residents, the pediatric doctor, and the pediatric surgeon while we were there. It's amazing how many doctors are around that place. All have been wonderful too. They had to put an IV in him (but got it in his hand, thanks to us saying we'd rather it be somewhere other than his head!) and a tube down his nose again. :( It's absolutely terrible to watch your infant go through that. We got to hold him but there were several times when he was inconsolable. They scheduled a sonogram to look more clearly at the pyloric stenosis for 7am the following morning, with surgery to immediately follow.

This unit wasn't as nice as the NICU.. We found out we were to stay there, which was fine but that also meant the nurses weren't around like at all!

Saturday morning, Eric's parents got there before everything started. It was so nice of them to be there. We went in for the sonogram and the doctor showed us how thick the muscle was. We were then taken to surgery to wait, where we signed all the consents and waited with Aeson until it was time. As we had been reading through the paperwork on pyloric stenosis, it had the risks listed and at the end said 'Your infant may die.' Gah.. I know they have to include that, but that was pretty terrible to read.

While Aeson was in surgery, we had to wait in the waiting room. They had a neat system that updated you on what was going on though. The surgery took only about 15 minutes and the surgeon came to let us know everything went well afterwards. There was only a 1-2% chance the surgery wouldn't work. I got to go to recovery with him after that. He was still kind of out of it and crying the most pitiful little cry.

He then got to eat starting at noon and increase the amount every 3 hours. They said spitting up was normal but he actually didn't until the very last (and most) feeding. It was more like vomiting again but then he never did again through the night. I was able to nurse him after the initial three feedings.

He did very well, and we were able to get discharged the following morning. We have to follow up with the surgeon in 2 weeks. They really never said anything about the colon, although we kept asking! One resident had said it could be related to the pyloric stenosis.. and one talked to the surgeon and said they had noticed it but weren't worried about it.. that we can bring it up at our follow up appointment. One resident also heard a heart murmer at one point but then it went away when he moved.. which he said was normal.. but again, that worries me! Thank goodness everything went well, though. This is a relatively common thing, I think.

So now we're home and I feel like we're almost starting over again in some aspects. Aeson's seemed very well.. We give him Tylenol regularly, but he's seemed content and has had no more vomiting. He still acts like he's going to occasionally but nothing has come up. We go to his doctor tomorrow. They also confirmed his jaundice (which has still continued to some degree.. it seems to go up and down) is breastmilk jaundice.. because his score went down when he wasn't able to eat for that day. Once again, this is something that only occurs in less than 2% of babies.. It seems like everything has been that way with the pregnancy/birth.

Well, baby's up now. That's about the end of this story anyway. :)