When we took Krew in for his 2-month check up the doctor was a little concerned about his development. He is smiling and doing the social things he is supposed to, but his strength is not quite right. His little head is very floppy and you have to support it when you hold him, just like a newborn. Ugh. I guess I had forgotten what it was supposed to be like with a two-monther, I figured he was right on track.
SO we left the doctors office with an order to go to Utah Valley for some blood work. The thing that he has is called hypotonia, which essentially means, low muscle tone. Now we just have to figure out why he has this problem. It can be caused from about 25 different things, some of which are very scary. He can (and may) just grow out of it.
We went straight over to the hospital for the blood work. Poor little guy had just got his immunizations and was not super happy with us already...we really ticked him off when they needed enough blood for about 10 different tests. He was actually really brave and even the lab tech was impressed. So two more bandaids later, we headed home to wait for the results.
That night the doctor called to let us know that all of the tests came back negative. To be honest, I am not even sure what he was tested for. I guess that is something I should have paid attention to, but I think I was just in shock that something was wrong. So, the next step was an MRI to mark a few more things off the list of possibilities.
We went the following day to Utah Valley to get this done. We were not sure on a time so we got up and fed Krew, just in time for the pediatric sedation team to call and let me know that Krew has to fast for 6 hours before they can do it, because of the risk of him throwing up and choking on it while under. So because I had just fed him, we had to wait until 3 pm that afternoon and the only thing we could give him was pedialite up until one hour before the test. Poor kid.
So around 2:30, we headed over to the hospital. Luckily, Kam was already down at my mom's house so we didn't need to worry about what to do with him. We were planning on going to Fillmore for the weekend, so we were just going to get the test done, pick up Kam and be on our way... we were wrong.
We got to the hospital and they took us back to get him "prepped" for the MRI. He had to have an IV, and get hooked up to all of the monitors so they could make sure he didn't get too sleepy to breath, etc. The nurses were really good with him, but it was still pretty sad. They tried to stick his IV in his head to start with and the vein went bad, so they stuck it in his wrist. I was relieved, I am not sure I could have looked at him without crying if that was poking out of his little head. The nurse started asking me questions about Krew, one was if he was full term or not. When I told her that he was born at 36 weeks, she let us know that we would need to stay overnight, so he could continue to be monitored for 12 hours. Crap. This was turning into such a big yucky deal.
They got him all happy and loopy with the drugs in his IV and off they went. The MRI took about twenty minutes, then we headed up to the pediatric floor to settle in for the night. It was pretty convenient that we already had all of our stuff with us, we didn't even need to go get anything for our sleepover. Krew was so out of it when we got to the room. We had to work on getting him to wake up so he could eat, since it had been almost 9 hours by then. By about 8 pm that night he was finally being alert more and had more interest in eating.
Our doctor came by around 7pm to talk over the test results with us. It came back completely normal. I was not sure if I should be excited or worried. I asked the doctor and he told me I should be encouraged, because they have ruled out about half of the causes, and some of them were really bad things that can not be treated very easily. A tiny part of me wished that we had found an answer, because it is so hard putting him through all of these tests, especially if it turns out they were not necessary. There is a possibility that he is just slow, and it really is just a "catching up" problem. This, of course, is what we are hoping.
Krew was so good through his whole hospital stay. Spence and I tried to get some sleep, but it was almost impossible, with his machines going off every few minutes. I think I was having flashbacks of ICU, so every time his little oxygen indicator would freak out, I would jump up and rush over to him and make sure he was breathing. He was of course, it just kept moving on his teeny tiny foot. I was a basket of nerves all night and was relieved to get him home away from all the dang machine alarms.
Our next step is to see a neurologist. He will be able to tell if his problem is related to his brain, nerves, and muscles and how they all work together. Krew's doctor told us that in the meantime, we just need to work with him. He showed us some exercises to do with him every day along with lots of tummy time. It has been almost three weeks since all of this and I have seen some improvement. He is much more active with his arms and legs. He is totally pushing his feet to a standing position every chance he gets, but his little neck is still floppy. Not as bad as it was, but floppy. We are going in for a check up with the Krew's regular doctor on Monday the 21st, so I am hoping he has improved so much that the doctor just tells us everything was a big fat mistake and he is just fine. This, I am sure is not the case, but I can hope right?!
Check out all of the battle wounds...five bandaids and hardly any tears. He is so brave :) This was the day of his appointment, after the blood work.
Right after the MRI, he was OUT! We asked them if we could take some of that drug home to use on our four year old...
Finally awake and eating some sugar water. YUM :) Look at the teeny tiny blood pressure cuff.
Just chillin in his hospital crib. He was SO good.
A close up of his little IV.
Do you think he was a little bit happy to go home?!? Too cute!
