12/22/09

I know it's been quite a while since I've written and many of you were worried about Tyler, sorry it's taken me so long to get back to updating the blog. Let's see... when we woke up last Saturday morning, Tyler had taken a turn for the worst. He had vomitted again and I could visually see all the food that we were able to get into him the day prior so I knew what little calories he had ingested were not being put to any good use! He was very sick looking and wanted to just lay in my arms and cry. Steve wasn't home and Ben was feeling great so I was struggling with keeping Ben happy, getting him breakfast, etc. and keeping Tyler content. My worry was mounting for Tyler. This would be day #7 that he had gone w/o really eating and to know taht hew as getting worse not better was really wearing on me. Steve made some calls to try to figure out where/how we could get him in to a doctor and avoid the hospital. We found somewhere to take him and luckily grandma was coming for a visit so she could play with Ben while we took Tyler in to the doc.

The peditrician we met with was AMAZING. She spent a good 45 minutes with us answering all our questions and she was very empathetic. She has a baby with neurological trouble and as a result has numerous feeding/sensory issues so she totally could understand our pain. In fact she said I used to agree with everyone else when they said, "if a kid is hungry, they will eat, they will not starve themselves", she goes, I now know, THAT"S NOT TRUE! Nope.. it sure isn't. Many kids with autism have eating issues. I think I posted a video once of a kid with autism who was anorexic becuase eating just caused him so much pain that he just chose not to eat. Kids with autism are far from typical! So anyway, she told us that as long as they are getting fluids and not dehydrated (which tyler showed no signs of dehydration) that they can go a good 10 days w/o eating so to call back on Tuesday if he hasn't gotten any better. We felt so relieved! I mean, still worried but at least we knew that we werent' making any mistakes by not taking him to the hospital. Oh, he was down to 25 lbs and we packed him full of fluid that morning so he was probably more int he 24 lb range. Tyler spends the rest of the day kind of being teh same, just laying on my lap, oaccsionalyl getting up to play and then coming back to my lap. Grandma was a great help cause she could play with Ben, Dad could get things done around the house, and I could hold Tyler.

Sunday morning rolls around and Tyler made a completel 180.. he ate a whole bowl of cereal for breakfast and was playing and smiling, it was great. My mom came down for a visit that morning as well. We were all happy to be back to normal or so we though. Steve's mom got sick Sunday night and is just now recovering. Got a call Sunday night that the youngest daughter of daycare was sick.. next night their sun, next day their older daughter and then last night, a call from teh oldest daughter saying the mom had gotten it. I found out yesterday talkign to some parents at Tyler's school that they ended up closing down the school when Tyler was out. We got a sheet from school explaining the norovirus and that it takes a minimum of 3 days after the person feels better to not be contagious and can be up to 10. wow! So we haven't had daycare this week, obviously and Steve and I have taken intermitten days off (except today) so that we could care for the boys. Ben has been having a great time since Tyler is in school most of the day, Ben has been getting spoiled. I took him to teh natural history museum yesterday to see dinosaur bones and he had a ton of fun. Today Grandpa is spoiling him :) We are hopign next week everything will finally get back to normal.

I also wanted to say "YEAH" I'm really excited Obama is now the president. Attached is a link to his agenda and he talks about autism and his plans for autism if you are interested.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/disabilities/