Piece by piece, we are helping sweet G. I look at where we were a year ago and we have learned so much.
I am grateful.
We now know he is allergic to eggs, dairy, peanuts, chicken, soy, and raspberries. We don't know if he has any more allergies. We don't know what he will grow out of.
We now know that his nightmare eczema is made worse by his allergies. This means I no longer walk into his room in the middle of the night to find everything covered in blood because his little skin on his face is so thin. We don't know if the remaining minor eczema is also connected to allergies that we are unaware of.
We now know about his acid reflux and that medications help. They don't help all everything and we are trying out a stronger one.
He was in pain. Now he is just uncomfortable.
We now know that his allergies and acid reflux were affecting his sleep. Until he was six months old, he could only sleep 20 minutes at a time on his worst nights, one hour at a time on his best. Now he only wakes up 5 times a night on his worst nights but has actually slept through the night on his very rare best nights.
We still don't know why he has had a cough since December of last year. He has been to ENT and all they found were swollen vocal chords but an otherwise healthy normal throat. We are questioning if the cough is acid reflux related. I'm listening to him cough right now as he takes a nap, every 7 seconds. It comes and goes, good days and bad.
He throws up. It averages to only about once every two weeks. Sometimes it's because he has eaten something he is allergic to, sometimes it is for no known reason.
I feel like even though we are still facing unknowns, we are at the end of it. So much progress has been made that there seems to be little left to do. He is now seeing a GI doctor who put him on a new acid reflux med to see if it helps some of his unknowns, and if it doesn't then she has a plan to check out his esophagus and run some tests. I feel good about putting this in her hands.
I am grateful for our progress. I don't know how I survived on zero sleep for the first six months of his life, and still such little sleep now. I am grateful that none of this has been serious life threatening stuff. I am grateful for the amazing doctors we have met, especially his pediatrician and dermatologist and GI doctor. I am grateful for Sweet G's sweetness, he is such a chill happy boy and he has been dealing with so much. I'm not chill and happy when I deal with less than he.
Hoping and praying it keeps heading in the right direction.
So so grateful for all that we have learned.
We have been so blessed on this little journey to help him.
I just love him so.
