Summer 2009

Check out some pictures of what we did this summer.

The highlight of the summer, was Justin, April and I going to Salt Lake to see Nickelback, Hinder, Saving Abel, and Papa Roach at the USANA Ampitheatre. We took a leasurely lunch break with Dee, Crystal, Ryan and Meg at Applebees in Layton. Sorry the pictures aren't very good, but Ryan took them with my new Samsung Instinct, and I'm not sure the camera in that phone is quite up to par.

We took my friend Sara, her man Kendall, and her neighbor to the concert with us. It was Sara's birthday, and I hadn't seen her in about 10 years, so I figured it was probably a pretty good way to make up for 10 years of no birthday presents. Anyway, we all had fun, and the kids got to have sleep overs at Grammy's house in the middle of the week, which they never get to do, so they were pretty psyched too.

Well, that's about it. I hope you enjoyed watching our summer go by about as much as we enjoyed doing it.

Good news! (Finally)

Okay, so I have been too busy (and I'll admit it, lazy) to update my blog for the past few months. However, I didn't have anything I was very interested in talking about. Well, now I do.

My last post was about how sick Nicholas has been and how we couldn't figure out exactly what it was. The most likely thing we could think of, was lactose intolerance. Well, we were WRONG.

I finally managed to get in to see the Pediatric Gastroenterologist about his "issues". The doctor was certain after listening to only a few seconds worth of his history that he knew exactly what was wrong with him. I was flabbergasted! The doctor asked me a few key questions like, what time of day does he usually start acting sick? How long does it last? How high of a fever, if any, does he typically get? How often does this occur?

After a brief discussion regarding all of these points, he printed off some information from the internet and gave me a diagnosis.

CYCLIC VOMITTING SYNDROME

He told me that it is so common that 1 in 50 kids from age 7+ have it, or have had it. The most common ages are children 7 and up, but it has been seen in infants, young adults, adults, and seniors! Most people just assume that it is a stomach flu or something and just don't stress about it. They assume that they are just over stressed or maybe ate something bad. The key is the fact that it occurs on a regular basis, lasts for 1 to 4 days and the main symptoms are vomiting and a lack of energy. It can be accompanied by a low grade fever and diarhea. Such as was the case with Nicholas.

He put Nicholas on Cyproheptadine to control the vomitting reflex while he is sleeping. (besides it is a really strong antihistimine, so it knocks him out all night) He also prescribed a medicine to stop the vomitting if he has another episode. With these two medications, he should not have any more bad episodes, if he has any at all, they should be much less dramatic.

Well, for any of you who might like to read more about cyclic vomitting syndrome, please click on the link below.

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/cvs/index.htm

Lactose intolerance

We have suspected for a while now that Nicholas may be lactose intolerant. He was able to tolerate formula just fine, but for some reason, he started getting really sick in January. He would throw up after drinking milk. He also had a fever and diarhea so when I took him into the doctor we assumed it was some kind of stomach bug. Well, it lasted about 4 days and he was fine again. In February, he got sick again, but so did the other kids. It started with pink eye and then Devan got laryngitits... I spent so much time in the doctor office, that when Nicholas got sick again, it was easy to just say that the whole family is just having a rough month. So, his doctor stated that it may be necessary to see a GI doc if it doesn't clear up. Well, it did and it started again in March. I am getting concerned at this point, and I called the GI doctor that helped Devan when he was 2. He needed a referral from our regular doctor and was completely booked up until after April 10th well, I was not able to get in to see his regular doctor by then and of course he wasn't sick at that time.

Well, when he got sick again this last weekend for no apparent reason, I decided to get the next available appointment with this doctor to get the referral to the GI doctor just to get it checked out and tell someone (who may have an idea what I'm talking about) what has been going on. Well, I will have to update later as to when and if I can get in with the GI doc any time soon, and if so, what he says, but for now, here is a picture that shows how yucky Nicholas has been feeling.