A little TOO Excited:)

I am probably about to majorly jinx myself but....Tucker has now been diarrhea-free for 24 hours!!! And to add to that, he had a solid stool today!!! I sent out a mass text to announce the news, haha, so sorry if you are my friend and didn't appreciate the text:) Tucker woke up with more energy today; I'd say that "normal" Tucker is at 100%, well today Tucker is at more like 20%, but it's much better than the past two days when he was down to about 1%. Yesterday and last night especially, I was very scared. Tucker had no energy, he just laid in his bed. Tucker has never ever been slowed down by an illness....even when he had an ear infection I wouldn't know, other than the awful smell! He went to school and had therapy, but was fussy....I made sure he had some extra sleep during that time, and then he was fine. But this sickness was just something else....really freaked us all out:( Last night Chris and I broke out the sat monitor to check Tucker's oxygen (100%) and heartrate (99), along with checking his blood sugars more often (stayed in the range of 100-119). Tucker's blood sugar is too high, we all know that. What I didn't know (thanks Missy!!) is that a quick increase in blood sugar can cause "dumping" which leads to diarrhea, especially when it happens after every feed (like Tucker's was) and when his energy is completely wiped out. So when other kids got the same virus Tucker got, they were sick for 2 days then went back to school. But the virus threw Tucker's whole body off guard, and his sugars possibly went nuts which made the problem much worse. To counteract this problem in the short-term, we could have put Tucker on continuous feeds, except we don't have a feeding pump! Tucker has always received "bolus" feeds, which means that we feed him five meals a day in his g-button. If for some reason his body can't tolerate that amount, we would move him to continuous feeds. This means that a bag of formula would be hooked to a pump and to Tucker's button, and that a small amount of food would constantly drip into Tucker's tummy all day...or for many hours a day. Tucker would carry the pump and formula around on his back in a backpack....a very common sight with Mito kids. Tucker's stuffed animal Mito turtle even has a removable shell since so many of the kids have the feeding backpacks. So last night I e-mailed Tucker's mito doctor. She emailed me today and said that Tucker should not be having diarrhea this long. So she suggested we stop his Levo-Carnitine, which I did today. Tucker has been on Levo-Carnitine since September 7th to give his body more energy. Dr. K's nurse said that we can restart it at half-dose once his poop is back to normal, and if the diarrhea returns then we will discontinue this med. It doesn't make sense that this would have caused the problems, but maybe since he had the virus the Levo-Carnitine didn't help matters at that point. She also suggested that we talk to Tucker's GI doctor and make a plan. The GI doctor would be the dr to order a feeding pump, and she is in New Orleans so we could always drive to her office if she needed to see Tucker. I called the GI doctor today, she was probably susprised to hear from me since we hadn't seen her since May. The nurse called me to get all of Tucker's symptoms, and they are supposed to call me back later. I want a plan in place in case this happens again. We are only at the beginning of "sick" season, so who knows what the next few months have in store for us. I am posting the link to an article called "The Poop Chronicles." All new moms know the importance of their baby's poop cycle-it has such a big effect on their happiness and health! Well, moms of special needs kids don't really ever let that fascination with poop go away! One of my main concerns when Tucker started preschool was that I wouldn't know all the details of each BM, which are an important indicator of his overall health. This might sound silly to most people, but it was a big deal to me. The past 9 days have given me a whole new appreciation for the moms and dads of the kids who deal with chronic GI issues....I really hope this sickness is over and not a new symptom for us, as I don't think I'm cut out for this. http://articles.complexchild.com/oct2010/00242.html