Primary's

So, so sad. When Katie and I got back from the mountain Monday, November 1st, I took the twins upstairs for their nap. Almost to the top Sydney just plastered me, herself and Cora in the same vomit that had been coming out for a week and a half by that point. She was losing weight and it really showed. She reminds me a bit of Gollum here. Jeremy thought she looked like a survivor of a concentration camp. She only weighed 15 lbs 5 oz the day before we flew out and in less than a week's time she was at 14 lbs 4 oz. After trying scheduled Zofran, 3 IV infusions, a KUB, 2 CBCs, and a UA with no clear improvement, the pediatrician in Cedar and I decided it was best to head to Primary Children's in Salt Lake. I can't be grateful enough for my mom. She came straight home from work and took over Katie and Cora, had almost all of my things packed by the time I got back from the Dr.'s office, and watched those two from that night until Thursday night, when she made the 4 hour drive with them in tow. I didn't have to worry about them at all and could focus just on Sydney. It was the first time they were separated and I worried about that a little, but I think they both enjoyed how much individual attention they got (Sydney was held almost every second she was awake and I know Cora was held a lot, too). They sure melted my heart when they got back together though. They just smiled, reached for each other, and cooed. Katie was so excited to see Jeremy (he flew out a day early and she hadn't seen him for two weeks) that she ran up to him, wrapped her little arms around him, and said, "My Daddy! I love my Daddy."
Here's my angel sister, Ann, holding little Sydney. She just loved to rock and cuddle with Ann. Ann just let me lay there half asleep and still visit with her. It was the most quiet time the two of us have had together probably since her first girl was born. As much as no one wants to hang out at the hospital on vacation, it was a lot better to be there with family close enough to visit.
Here's my little girl in her gown. We walked the halls of the hospital many a time and ran into several people I knew from nursing school and work. What happened? We still don't really know. We just pumped her full of fluids again. She had an upper GI study (basically she drank liquid chalk under an x-ray), that showed her stomach was emptying kind of slow. They ran labs. She had an endoscopy. They took biopsies. Everything came back negative. Go figure. So it's a good thing nothing was found, yet we still don't know what happened. She threw up a few more times once she was discharged, but she is definitely heading in the up direction. I'm grateful it was something so small. I think I say that and some people think I'm nuts. But anyone more familiar with the medical field knows there are such awful things that kids and their families have to go through. We were not up against a chronic or terminal disease. We have insurance. No surgery. No months to years of prescriptions. We were able to get into the hospital and know that it was clean (if you've seen health care in other countries then you'll understand what I mean by that statement).

Yes, I really wanted to know what was going on with Sydney. I didn't want her to be hurting, but having seen some very painful things in hospitals, I knew the couple of sticks she was receiving that were helping her get better wouldn't be a problem. She did so well with the staff there. She really adored several of her nurses and was great with letting the docs check her out. Syd was a trooper. It was nice when we got to leave though. Sleeping in a bed without the lights, beeps and 4am vitals was so good!