Sick Kids

Our family has had a rough week! Last Monday, less than a week after she had been released from the Intemountain Medical Center NICU, Alice started throwing up quite a bit and had blood in her diaper. After some blood work and an X-ray, Alice was admitted to Primary Children's Medical Center. She has a bacterial intestinal infection which is apparently common in preemies. She was started on antibiotics, and was taken for X-rays every six hours. She also had a tube put into her stomach to suction it out so that the bacteria no longer had anything to feed on. After several hours, Frances and Claire went home and Marc stayed at PCMC with Alice.
The next day, Marc and Frances moved from the duplex near IMC back to their own home. Our family has been taking turns staying at the hospital with Alice relieving Marc to do some work that he has needed to do. Last Friday, Ryan and I went to stay with Alice from about 3:00 to about 9:00. Rara and Papa went to stay with Claire, and Marc and Frances were able to have their first night out together since the girls were born. They had a good time, but joked that the next time we all volunteered to take care of the girls, they would just go to their bedroom and sleep! Ryan and I had a good time with Alice. She had her stomach tube removed, so she is a little bit happier and sleeps a tiny bit better. Ryan is such a good little helper and loves his new cousins so much! Last night, it was Ryan that had the rough night. If you have a queasy stomach, skip to the next paragraph. Ryan sleepwalks about once a week, so last night when I heard him walking around at about 1:30 am, I calmly asked him if he was ok. Just as I finished asking, I heard him throwing up in the bathroom. I went in, and it was everywhere but the toilet. And I mean everywhere! It was also on his jammies, so I got him new jammies and had him lie down again while I cleaned up. It took me 1/2 hour to clean it all up! I went back to bed, and the prior sequence was repeated at 2:30. All of it. We got new jammies and I cleaned the bathroom again. About every hour for the rest of the night, Ryan was in the bathroom again. At least in subsequent visits, everything landed where it was supposed to. At about 5:30 am, I called Papa. Rara spent the night at the hospital with Alice, and I knew Papa would be up getting ready for his 7:00 am meeting. We told him the events of the night, and told him that Ryan had requested a Priesthood blessing. Papa finished getting ready and came over at about 6:30 am and gave Ryan a blessing. Thankfully, as I write this, it has been about 2 1/2 hours since his last episode. Hopefully, since he seemed to be on an every-hour schedule throughout the night, he is done. I called Rara to hear about Alice's night (sleepless) and tell her about our night (sleepless). We decided that we need to tell Marc and Frances that they may have actually had the BEST night's sleep of all of us last night!

Here are pictures of the girls that we took on Friday night.

Alice...

Claire...