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Everything has been going well with Noah, other then the fact that his hearing has been getting worse. It seems like everyday it's a constant chorus of "what?" "huh?" and blank stares as if he's trying to hear you but just can't make anything out of it. We noticed that he has started to read lips, if you make him look at you, and repeat yourself.... he'll get it.
It's hard to watch him struggle like that. He is getting his hearing checked again soon, but it doesn't seem like it's soon enough.
He hasn't been so sick, that he has had to be hospitalized, since 2007 when he almost died. It's silly to go back, because he's fine now, but I will never forget watching him so sick, 103-104 temp, him throwing up, just being so sick he couldn't move much, him complaining about pain in his right side /... knowing something was that wrong and not having the doctors hear me, until I couldn't take it anymore, I was desperate, so when I went in for my DR appt 2 hours away I took him with ... and finally got someone to listen to me. Thank goodness, or he'd likely to not be here. They admitted him, ran a gambit of tests, his kidney's were failing and they were throwing a ton of blood out into his urine. I remember standing at the movie cabinet next to the nurses station, they were passing around his urine sample around, had no idea I was his mom, they were talking about how it looked like apricot preserves. Yep - it was that color ....
They saved him. One of the hardest days of my life was to leave my child in his hospital room, and then go down one floor to give birth to another. The day Nathan was born, Noah was released from the hospital, looking weak and tired, but better.
That was the last time he was in the hospital.
Until the end of last month. He was running a 103-104 degree temp.... and he was so sick. Took him in and his blood tests showed an abnormal white blood cell count, and his urine looked like this .... mind you, there is a blue stick in there that matches the color of the cover.......
A lot of blood ....... A LOT ... not as much as the last time he was in the hospital... but enough to really concern me.
The DR ended up sending us home for the night. He was concerned about him possibly having appendicitis, or something else going on. So he wanted him on a liquid diet until the following day. He wanted him to come back to the ER at 11am so that they could continue assessment of appendicitis. If his blood work wasn't better, if he wasn't starving, etc, then we would run the CT scan or whatever it was he wanted to do to diagnosis it.
So we went back the next day ....
He was more miserable on the 26th when we went back in, then he was the night before. His fever was not registering on their monitors all day. Kept reading normal or low grade ... and then, I pointed out to one of the nurses that he was burning the hell up, made him TOUCH Noah.. he did it the normal way, and although it said 101 ... I told him I didn't believe it, it was way higher then that. I said "I hate to suggest it, but will you do it rectal because I know that's the most accurate way to get a temp" so he humored me. Want to know what his temp was?!? 104.8! Yeah! His pulse was racing, his blood pressure was high ... they put leads on him... to keep better track of his heart rate.... and Noah was so hungry when we go there, that they ordered him a lunch tray and he got this huge cookie on the tray, and he didn't even get to eat half of it before he said "Mom, I think I'm gonna throw up" I frantically looked through the cupboards and such for something for him to throw up in and all I could find was a bedpan type thing, so I gave him that and........ he lost it. Not to mention, they had to stick him 5 times to get blood from him the first time, three times for the IV, another time for blood draw, and then they realized they hadn't gotten ENOUGH blood so they had to come back and poke him again. TEN TIMES he got poked that night... and a lot of those were digging pokes trying to find a vein. He did okay for the first couple, then he'd get really anxious between but whenever they were doing the actual poking or what not, he was brave and not crying. He was BRAVE .. and he was AMAZING......... (pick below, trying to show the leads on his chest, and you can sorta see the IV in his left arm on the right side of the pic ...
Good news was - his blood tests were better and his urine looked clearer. YAY ... but something was going on. His kidneys were still spilling out a "large" amount of blood and his Kidney Docs wanted him to spend the night in the hospital for observation. So after 9 hours in the ER we got transferred by ambulance to Seattle Childrens. (Noah in the ambulance)
These were taken on the ride over. Noah - who is always trying to smile for pictures, even when he's really sick....
Here he is asleep with Max ... and his blanket....
On the way over on the ambulance ... they got the news that he had tested positive for Influenza A (which they took the tests literally right before he was put on the ambulance bed and we were put in the ambulance) So from then on, it was mask time.....
He was taken up to his room at 2am and he didn't fall asleep until 4am, I didn't fall asleep until 5 ... and we were up around 8... he had been throwing up everytime they tried to get him something to eat....but by Sunday morning, he seemed to be holding stuff down.
So we ended up going home on Sunday. His kidneys had cleared up and it seemed that the flu was attacking his kidneys. I think it's going to be something we deal with everytime he gets really sick. He ended up being out of school the whole week due to his fever coming and going all week, and then ... we all got a stomach bug! Seriously!?!? At first we thought it was us getting the flu, until Noah got it too.. then we knew it was something totally different. And after a long week of hit, misses, and a car accident, he was out that whole week too.
Now he's doing good. Even his hearing has improved again right now. Because we moved (while he was sick) ... he had to start at a new school and he is doing fantastic there I think.
His new Mascot is the Killer Whale...
He had a follow up with endo and everything is looking good, and he saw Genetics ... so that he can be followed by them.
When ever I sit and think about everything he's been through, I am always amazed and always go back to the fact that I was told before he was even born that he wouldn't live. Yeah he has some ups and downs.... but he is doing amazingly well for the hand he was dealt.
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