Bad News

For the last three days I have been at home with a very sick child. After sharing his cold with us earlier in the week (see post below), Ian had a relapse. He has had a sore throat, a fever, and laryngitis. He sounded horrible. Saturday night he gave us a scare. He woke us up in the middle of the night and said he couldn't breathe. After a brief panic, I calmed down enough to ask him some questions. Tim was all set to rush him to emergency. It turns out that because his throat was so sore, when he tried to talk and breathe at the same time he couldn't. So, in his mind he couldn't breathe. I listened to his breathing just in case, and it was fine. Well, this morning he gets up and says he's feeling better. I decided that I would take him to the doctors anyways, since he was still sounding pretty froggy. Then Ian started throwing up and throwing up and throwing up. Joy!

Turns out Ian has adenovirus. I had never heard that word until last night. When I got on the computer to look up symptoms of Strep Throat, (Yes, I thought for sure he had this), I came across the word adenovirus. It certainly sounded like what Ian had, but the only way to be sure was to make a trip up to the doctor. To find out more about adenovirus check out this link: http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/lung/adenovirus.html.

It was a relief to confirm that his lungs were clear as well as his sinuses and that he did not have strep. The prescription: lots and lots of rest, which thankfully he has been doing all day.

Now the bad news. We weighed him again and he is down to 45.4 lbs. He is at the weight he was a year ago, minus a tenth of a pound. The minimal amount of weight that he has gained is now gone. I am trying very hard to not freak out, but this is not good. For those of you who don't know, Ian has been having a problem with his weight since this past June. He was on this one type of medicine that caused him to go into a depression. When his doctor at Children's took him off of it we discovered that he had only gained 1 pound in the past year. Our questions were 1)did he lose weight because of the medicine or 2) is this a growth issue. The doctors aren't quite sure. We have been modifying his eating patterns so that he eats every couple of hours and we have been trying to make sure they are high in calories, yet healthy food. We are trying to pack as much nutrients into a small amount. A little tricky, but with the help of a nutritionist we have been doing okay. I was so happy because he had been eating every day for the last two weeks, he wasn't skipping meals, and he was eating quite a bit of it. Then he got sick.

I know that all of us tend to lose a little bit of weight when we are sick, but he can ill afford it. I'm very, very worried. I keep praying to God that he will be okay, that this is just a temporary set back. I hope so....