There's a big update to the family, but it starts with Jackson's exciting Saturday, a day filled with vomit, diarrhea, a hospital, pharmacies aplenty, and Noelle saying she has sworn off an entire city for life. If you don't want to read about liquid escaping our son's various holes, why not check out our friend Shannon's sweet story about her daughter Maddie here?
The day began early, with a sweet Jackson eating his morning meal at 4:30 and snuggling with us in our beach house bed for another few hours. (Beach house explained in a later post.) At 7:30, he didn't eat too much. He did manage to throw up quite a bit after finishing though. It mostly slimed Noelle, and it worried us because this guy doesn't really throw up much. However, the day went on, after a change of clothes for all involved, and a cleaning of the beach house floor.
Then we went next door to visit Rob's parents' beach house. (Second beach house explained in a later post.) We had some breakfast and started writing some finishing touches to a wedding ceremony. (Wedding ceremony explained in later post.) Jackson got to pose with his four cousins for a few pictures, although one of them was not technically a cousin yet. (Exp. lat.) Pic later, promise. Good times were had, but Jackson was sluggish.
10:30 was the next vomit, but it was just a little bit. At this point he was refusing to nurse or have a bottle, which is not like him. (He's not a fat baby, but he does like food.) He had about an ounce from our attempts to feed him, and he was starting to look pale. He kept drifting off to sleep and was not the lively Jackson we are used to.
Around 12:30, Rob decided to see how sluggish he really was by picking him up and playing with him. Jackson, tiredly, smiled and showed he was still our Jackson. Rob hugged him, and the floodgates opened. Vomit fell everywhere, filling Rob's shirt pocket and covering him with the white gunk, which was way more than the ounce we had fed him. The first thought was to save the beach house carpet, done by a move mid-vomit to the tile by the beach house fireplace. (It was a nice beach house, explained later.) The second thought was "What's up with this boy?" As Rob's parents scoured the carpet, Rob called the doctor's answering service to see what they had to say. He also changed clothes and was glad he hadn't been playing airplane with Jackson.
When the answering service finally called back, Rob had just finished typing the wedding ceremony in the bathroom. (It was quiet there.) He emerged to hear, "They want us to go to the hospital emergency room." Jackson hadn't had a wet diaper all day, and they were concerned about dehydration. It was three hours until the wedding started, the one Rob was officiating, (exp. lat.) and we had to drive to the other side of Galveston to go to UTMB, which had recently reopened.
Contingency plans were made, two cars were taken, and we made it to UTMB in about forty-five minutes. We checked in and eventually had a nurse take Jackson's vitals. His temperature was normal (as it had been all day), his heart rate was fine, and his diaper was now wet. But how we'll remember her would be her loving statement - "He has a big head."
We know Jackson's head is bigger than 97% of the other babies out there. His dad has a big head. He knows about it. He has issues about it. So when he is sitting next to his son, don't point out his head size as though it's something we don't know. And don't sum up your first impression of our beautiful boy by dismissing him as a big-head.
Anyhoo, we head back to a room where a medical student gave him a closer look. And once he had gone through and Jackson's vitals were looking good, Rob had to leave his wife and child at the hospital to get back to the other side of Galveston.
The medical student returned shortly with the doctor. The doctor checked Jackson out and said he definitely had something and that they needed to curb his vomiting with some medicine so he wouldn't get dangerously dehydrated. Then, the virus would work its way out of his system and he'd be able to eat again. The doctor wanted to give him a Zofran that would dissolve under his tongue, have Noelle try to feed him and then (assuming he'd eat) watch him for 30 mins to make sure he kept it down. He asked if that would work. Noelle said yes and explained that would mean they would get to the wedding right when it was starting. She immediately thought about how she would be able to take some pictures of the ceremony from the balcony and give them a view they'd probably miss out on otherwise.
Unfortunately, this is about where the day started to really fall apart. About 30 minutes later Jackson started to cry. Jackson doesn't really cry much at all, so Noelle isn't really used to his crying and HATES when he does cry. After 15 minutes of him crying he finally settled down. Noelle began hearing some bits and pieces of troubling conversation. She heard "not safe for a four month old" as well as a few other troubling comments. A couple of minutes later a nurse poked his head in and looked at Jackson. Noelle asked if there was a problem and he said, "No, I just wanted to see the baby." She let him know she meant about the medicine, but he denied there was an issue, which is when she stepped out of the room where the other nurses were. (This is the same nurse that asked, "Is this your first child. I thought so." Why do people say this!? Our doctor told us to take him in. It's not like we wanted to mess up the wedding day by taking him in for something silly.) At that point the doctor came out of a room and asked how he's done since the medicine. At that point another nurse spoke up and said they didn 't have the one he asked for, only the regular tablets, but she didn't think it was safe for a 4 mo old. He said it was not. He was trying to think of another medicine when Noelle told him she had the dissolvable ones at home. He said yes, but to give him half and not to feed him until he had it. Since Noelle was not going home, he ended up giving her a prescription.
Noelle and Jackson headed to the discharge area. While the paperwork was being finalized, Jackson had the worst diarrhea he has ever had. If you are grossed out by the word diarrhea, stop reading and skip to the next paragraph. Noelle heard a sound, looked down, and saw it begin to bubble up in front of the diaper into his lap. This happened several times within a minute. The person that was discharging Jackson called the nurse over, who didn't seem concerned. At this point Noelle still thought she would get to the wedding before the ceremony ended.
As Noelle was heading back to the beach house, she passed a CVS. She carried Jackson in to get the medicine to find the "24 Hour Pharmacy" had closed at 6pm. She asked where the closest open pharmacy was and was told that every pharmacy on the island closed at 6pm ever since Ike. Luckily Shannon was able to look up the closest pharmacy that was still open. The exit wasn't too far from Galveston. Unfortunately, in the short distance there was a wreck on 45. Once past that, the exit was only a couple of miles away. But, upon exiting, the pharmacy was far from 45. It took nearly 15 minutes to get there after exiting. Jackson screamed the whole way there.
The day began early, with a sweet Jackson eating his morning meal at 4:30 and snuggling with us in our beach house bed for another few hours. (Beach house explained in a later post.) At 7:30, he didn't eat too much. He did manage to throw up quite a bit after finishing though. It mostly slimed Noelle, and it worried us because this guy doesn't really throw up much. However, the day went on, after a change of clothes for all involved, and a cleaning of the beach house floor.
Then we went next door to visit Rob's parents' beach house. (Second beach house explained in a later post.) We had some breakfast and started writing some finishing touches to a wedding ceremony. (Wedding ceremony explained in later post.) Jackson got to pose with his four cousins for a few pictures, although one of them was not technically a cousin yet. (Exp. lat.) Pic later, promise. Good times were had, but Jackson was sluggish.
10:30 was the next vomit, but it was just a little bit. At this point he was refusing to nurse or have a bottle, which is not like him. (He's not a fat baby, but he does like food.) He had about an ounce from our attempts to feed him, and he was starting to look pale. He kept drifting off to sleep and was not the lively Jackson we are used to.
Around 12:30, Rob decided to see how sluggish he really was by picking him up and playing with him. Jackson, tiredly, smiled and showed he was still our Jackson. Rob hugged him, and the floodgates opened. Vomit fell everywhere, filling Rob's shirt pocket and covering him with the white gunk, which was way more than the ounce we had fed him. The first thought was to save the beach house carpet, done by a move mid-vomit to the tile by the beach house fireplace. (It was a nice beach house, explained later.) The second thought was "What's up with this boy?" As Rob's parents scoured the carpet, Rob called the doctor's answering service to see what they had to say. He also changed clothes and was glad he hadn't been playing airplane with Jackson.
When the answering service finally called back, Rob had just finished typing the wedding ceremony in the bathroom. (It was quiet there.) He emerged to hear, "They want us to go to the hospital emergency room." Jackson hadn't had a wet diaper all day, and they were concerned about dehydration. It was three hours until the wedding started, the one Rob was officiating, (exp. lat.) and we had to drive to the other side of Galveston to go to UTMB, which had recently reopened.
Contingency plans were made, two cars were taken, and we made it to UTMB in about forty-five minutes. We checked in and eventually had a nurse take Jackson's vitals. His temperature was normal (as it had been all day), his heart rate was fine, and his diaper was now wet. But how we'll remember her would be her loving statement - "He has a big head."
We know Jackson's head is bigger than 97% of the other babies out there. His dad has a big head. He knows about it. He has issues about it. So when he is sitting next to his son, don't point out his head size as though it's something we don't know. And don't sum up your first impression of our beautiful boy by dismissing him as a big-head.
Anyhoo, we head back to a room where a medical student gave him a closer look. And once he had gone through and Jackson's vitals were looking good, Rob had to leave his wife and child at the hospital to get back to the other side of Galveston.
The medical student returned shortly with the doctor. The doctor checked Jackson out and said he definitely had something and that they needed to curb his vomiting with some medicine so he wouldn't get dangerously dehydrated. Then, the virus would work its way out of his system and he'd be able to eat again. The doctor wanted to give him a Zofran that would dissolve under his tongue, have Noelle try to feed him and then (assuming he'd eat) watch him for 30 mins to make sure he kept it down. He asked if that would work. Noelle said yes and explained that would mean they would get to the wedding right when it was starting. She immediately thought about how she would be able to take some pictures of the ceremony from the balcony and give them a view they'd probably miss out on otherwise.
Unfortunately, this is about where the day started to really fall apart. About 30 minutes later Jackson started to cry. Jackson doesn't really cry much at all, so Noelle isn't really used to his crying and HATES when he does cry. After 15 minutes of him crying he finally settled down. Noelle began hearing some bits and pieces of troubling conversation. She heard "not safe for a four month old" as well as a few other troubling comments. A couple of minutes later a nurse poked his head in and looked at Jackson. Noelle asked if there was a problem and he said, "No, I just wanted to see the baby." She let him know she meant about the medicine, but he denied there was an issue, which is when she stepped out of the room where the other nurses were. (This is the same nurse that asked, "Is this your first child. I thought so." Why do people say this!? Our doctor told us to take him in. It's not like we wanted to mess up the wedding day by taking him in for something silly.) At that point the doctor came out of a room and asked how he's done since the medicine. At that point another nurse spoke up and said they didn 't have the one he asked for, only the regular tablets, but she didn't think it was safe for a 4 mo old. He said it was not. He was trying to think of another medicine when Noelle told him she had the dissolvable ones at home. He said yes, but to give him half and not to feed him until he had it. Since Noelle was not going home, he ended up giving her a prescription.
Noelle and Jackson headed to the discharge area. While the paperwork was being finalized, Jackson had the worst diarrhea he has ever had. If you are grossed out by the word diarrhea, stop reading and skip to the next paragraph. Noelle heard a sound, looked down, and saw it begin to bubble up in front of the diaper into his lap. This happened several times within a minute. The person that was discharging Jackson called the nurse over, who didn't seem concerned. At this point Noelle still thought she would get to the wedding before the ceremony ended.
As Noelle was heading back to the beach house, she passed a CVS. She carried Jackson in to get the medicine to find the "24 Hour Pharmacy" had closed at 6pm. She asked where the closest open pharmacy was and was told that every pharmacy on the island closed at 6pm ever since Ike. Luckily Shannon was able to look up the closest pharmacy that was still open. The exit wasn't too far from Galveston. Unfortunately, in the short distance there was a wreck on 45. Once past that, the exit was only a couple of miles away. But, upon exiting, the pharmacy was far from 45. It took nearly 15 minutes to get there after exiting. Jackson screamed the whole way there.
As soon as Noelle got him out of the car seat, he calmed down. As they were waiting for the medicine, they sat down near an elderly gentleman. When Jackson missed school a couple of days last week, he was extremely happy to see his teacher, Ms. B, when he returned. Well, the elderly gentleman was a black, bald man. Ms. B is also black and bald. We think that Jackson thought this man was Ms. B and he got very excited, stood up, tried to move his body towards him and started smiling. This was something we had not seen in quite a while.
On the way back to the beach house, Jackson screamed again. At one point Noelle had to pull over because Jackson was so upset he was screaming to the point he started coughing. Of course, this took careful selection because some parts of Galveston are not safe looking at night. Luckily about 30 minutes into the 45 minute drive Jackson fell asleep.
Throughout the whole process, to add to the stress, Noelle has a new phone that she is not used to using yet, which also caused all sorts of problems.
Luckily, on Sunday Jackson was feeling a lot better! See pictures below.
Luckily, on Sunday Jackson was feeling a lot better! See pictures below.
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