One pound in two weeks!

With Emmalee it seems like life is a constant roller-coaster. Just when I think her health has reached a turning point--it's time to nose-dive. About three weeks ago Emmalee had a very rough week. On Monday we went to the doctor's office for a consultation because one of my neices has Chiari Malformation type one which has very similar symptoms to what Emmalee has been going through and we were seeing if it would be worth it to check it out. He decided we should screen for it just to make sure. We set up an appointment for Friday of that week just to make sure. Well, Tuesday she cried all day, wouldn't eat, and had a fever so we went in again to make sure she didn't have an ear infection or anything. They said to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't start vomiting more. Wednesday she vomited EVERYTHING and wouldn't eat and had not urinate for more than 8 hours so we got to go in again. She had white stuff in her throat so they did a strep culture, but it was negative. Thursday we were up at my in-laws and Joel and I had fallen asleep on couches so my Mother-in-law was putting Em down in her room since Emmalee had already fallen asleep as well. Well, she is quite the accomplished roller now and rolled off the bed and bonked her head and started screaming (of course) but more disturbing she started vomiting profusely (which she hadn't done all day, and she didn't have a fever Thursday so we thought she was doing better). My mother-in-law woke us up. I was a bit confused because I was still mostly asleep but she was throwing up and acting a bit funny. We decided to call the on-call nurse just to check and she said to bring her to the ER since she is so young. When we put her in her car-seat she fell asleep. Joel thought maybe we should call the nurse back because for adults you're supposed to keep them awake after a head bump and we weren't sure if the same rule applied for kids. The nurse said we didn't have to keep her awake, but to make sure that we could wake her up if we needed to, or just make sure that she responds. We were pinching her nose and cheeks and flicking her hands and wiggling her toes and ears and nothing. So we were a rather concerned on the way to the ER. Of course as soon as we got there she woke right up and was all smiles. They did a CT scan of her head and neck and everything looked fine. They said it was a mild concusion (which just means a bump on the head) and to keep an eye on her. My poor mother-in-law felt so bad! But Emmalee is perfectly fine and I think it just frightened her more than anything else. Well, Friday was the big day for the MRI on her brain. So we went to the hospital bright and early. She had to fast for it so she was a bit cranky about that. And they had to sedate her for the procedure. While they were trying to place the IV they blew two veins (that just means the vein "broke" because she was dehydrated and she's so little anyways) and finally got one in the arm. She was MAD! She screamed the whole time. They said the sedative should work quickly and the longest it would take was 15 minutes though they had never seen a baby take that long. Well, she took the full 15 minutes, they thought they were going to have to give her another sedative. She did wake up once during the procedure so they had to give her more sedative, but other than that it went really well. The MRI was fine and they didn't find anything abnormal. She was really tired the rest of the day and just wanted to cuddle, which I shamelessly enjoyed. That night after work I came home to what sounded like a barking seal! She was having a really rough time breathing, we were suctioning her nose out and standing with her in the bathroom with a hot shower going and putting her right over a humidifier and she was still just having a really tough time breathing. I finally called the on-call nurse and she said to bring her into the ER to have her checked out because she would most likely need breathing treatments. I got off the phone and cried. It was a really long week and I REALLY didn't want to see another doctor. When I went into the room to tell Joel he had finally gotten her to fall asleep and her breathing had calmed since she was calm. We decided if she woke up having troubles then we would take her in but we wanted to let her sleep. She slept through the night but was still having trouble Saturday morning so we brought her in then. The NP in the office said she had croup and gave her a shot to help open her lungs up. That helped A LOT! Sunday we stayed home from chuch because croup is highly contagious and our ward had a baby boom this summer and we didn't really want to get half the ward sick. Then Monday she decided to only eat two ounces even though her breathing was better and she had no fever so we got to see her doctor again. When we weighed her at that visit she had lost 11 ounces since the previous monday. We told her GI doctor and he said that if she didn't regain it by her 6 month birthday she would be put on a tube. Now to the title of my post. That was almost two weeks ago and we haven't had to bring her to the doctors office since then! Her Gi doctor put her on an anti-histamine which works as an appetite stimulant. It had worked wonders with her! She eats two to three times as much in a day as she used to. It's amazing! I went into the doctors office yesterday and asked if we could weigh her while we were there and she weighs a full pound more than she did at her last visit nearly two weeks ago! It's so exciting because she actually seems to like eating now. When she sees the bottle she gets really excited and starts reaching for it. I love it! It may just be another peak of the roller-coaster, but this peak has lasted for a while and I'm really enjoying it. Oh, and she started crawling. She more inch-worms than anything else. She can use all fours but she seems to prefer the inch-worm style. She's also been working on getting into a sitting position from crawling and she's getting good at it. My parents are in town because I've been having a really rough time with Emmalee. I've really enjoyed having my mom here to help out. It's been great to have her here and Emmalee absolutely loves her!