The Puke Monster Is At Our House

I got home last Saturday (7/17) from Colorado (post coming about the trip...waiting on pics to be developed from a throw away camera....who knew it now takes a week to get those things developed?!....anyways....) and when we woke up on Sunday morning to feed Elle, her feeding pump just decided to not work. Error message after error message (one of the few downfalls of depending on a machine to feed our child). We decided to do a gravity feed and hung the bag of formula up on the wall and let it drip down into Elle's stomach. Elle is very sensitive about the rate at which she is fed. Too fast and it is an instant puke. It took us a long time to find the perfect speed at which to feed her - slow enough so her stomach can handle everything but fast enough to where we don't feel like all we do is feed her all day long. We guessed we had the bag too high and Elle got the food too fast because she puked. Out the nose...out the mouth....grossness. We really didn't think anything of it and just continued gravity feeds for the rest of the day and she seemed totally fine. Monday...again....puke in the morning, fine with her afternoon feed and then the worst thing happened. We had an appointment with her ENT in the Medical Center. It was raining, terrible weather and I had to wake Elle up from her nap to get to the appointment. The drive down there was fine. Appointment went great - no tubes for Elle! Whoo hoo!! The drive back home...not so much. I decided to take the HOV lane since 290 traffic was backed up and it would have taken us 2 hours to get home. We jumped on the HOV (single lane for cars with more than 1 passenger - allows you to by-pass all the traffic sitting on the freeway - completely blocked in - once you're on - you can only get off at certain points every few miles) and started making our way home in the rain. Half-way home, Elle starts screaming and nothing would appease her...not the 20 books i passed back to her, not the 10 pacifiers I passed back to her - nothing. I can't pull over to console her because 1) it's raining and 2) I'm on the HOV and can't exit. As we were about to reach our exit, I heard the dreaded sound of gagging and then the worst thing happened - Elle began to puke and gag and choke while I was driving - on the HOV - with no way of me pulling over to help her. I was helpless...I couldn't do anything to help...I couldn't reach her....I couldn't slow down....I couldn't stop....and did I mention that it's raining...badly...very badly. After a few terrible minutes that seemed to drag on forever, I was able to get to the HOV exit and exit the freeway and pull into a parking lot and console my very terrified and frantic child. It was just awful. I haven't felt that helpless in a very long time. We finally made it home and got her cleaned up and down for a nap. Tuesday I was still thinking that her puking was from the fact that we were still having to do a gravity feed because our home health company delivered us a broken pump (totally different subject...one I'm still mad about). I took Elle to gym class as usual and then on to therapy where she puked not only all over me, but also all over one of the sofas in the waiting room at the therapy center. I'm still blaming the puking on the gravity feeds so she makes it through physical therapy and then occupational therapy but once we get home the puking starts again...along with the dreaded diarrhea. Great....time to start the pedialyte. Wednesday was the same with puking rounds followed by the dreaded "d" stuff. Poor little girl. We were able to get in with a pediatrician but not our usual one (ours is out of town for the month) and she told us just to continue with the pedialyte until we start to see signs of improvement. We are now on day 10 of the puke fests and thankfully they have diminished to just 1 or 2 a day. We were finally delivered a working pump (after 3 failed attempts...as in we were brought 2 pumps that didn't work and they lost my order for a new pump...one of the nurses at our pedi's office called our home health company and laid into them...we had a working pump by that afternoon). I just hate this for Elle. She is tiny already but has lost weight due to the fact that she is getting a majority pedialyte and only a few calories a day. Her normal feed is 7.5 ounces of pediasure every 5 hours 4x a day. Today we were able to bump up her pedialyte to 5 ounces every 3 hours and towards the end of the day we started to add in an ounce of pediasure with the feeds. We've called the cardiologist and they said they would be doing the same thing for her in the hospital that we are doing here at home so just to continue on with the fluids and watch for signs of dehydration. Last Sunday afternoon Lee surprised me with a new washer and dryer. I think we have already gotten our money's worth out of it. No less than 6 to 8 loads a day of sheets and towels and clothes...all of which has been puked on....or even worse....the dreaded "d" word....10 days of 6 to 8 loads a day...oh my. Even as I type this, Elle puked again in our bed...after our sheets had just been changed. So now, even though I was completely caught up on all the puke washing...I now have another set of sheets, our mattress cover and a few pillow cases that were the latest victims of the puke monster. Oh please Lord, let this end peacefully and go away as suddenly as it came! Please give Elle a break from the constant puking and give her strength where she has lost it. Please comfort and console her in a way that only YOU can. Please just give our little baby peace and comfort as she fights this terrible virus. And please, Lord, give Lee and I strength to get her through this and strength to console her and comfort her as she cries out in discomfort. Oh please, please just help Elle to heal!