Roslyn started her first dose of Zantac last night. She hated it. Who flavors infant medicine with peppermint?! Ew. Still, we were able to get her to swallow. She slept by my bed in the swing again. I couldn't sleep. Not after my horrifying experience in Walgreen's. I reached far and kept my one hand on her chest and stared at her mentally thinking don't fall asleep. don't do it. I'd be awoken who knows how long later with a giant gasp followed by coughing. Coughing, much different that the usual gag. This happened several times last night. At one point, I couldn't get her up and out of the swing fast enough for my liking and I woke Jonathan up for help before she finally recovered. I'm still not sure Jonathan knew what was going on. As fast as he sat up, I said "never mind, sorry, she's fine now" and he laid back down to sleep.
This morning I called the doctor as soon as they opened. To my surprise, they told me coughing was a good thing- it is an upgrade from gagging! Apparently, the medicine is doing it's thing. When she was gagging, it was because the reflux was getting so high up in her throat it was hitting her gag reflex. The medicine has minimized it to just coughing, meaning it's not rising as high- it's only tickling her throat. I'm still concerned about the gasping though... and the whole "not breathing".
She's had 2 doses now. She hasn't had any gasping or coughing since 4 am. That is really good! I'm actually really jazzed about that.
My visiting teacher put me in touch with a woman she knows. That lady gave me a call today. It is strange how a complete stranger becomes your good friend just by having been through a similar trial as you. We talked for a long time. My story almost paralleled her's. I told her the hardest thing for me to accept is that acid reflux can be this severe. She said, "trust me, I know. I battled that too." ... ok good, so I'm not to only one thinking it, right? I mean this is crazy! Reflux can do this?! Okay. So maybe it can.
She encouraged me to be bossy and pushy with doctors sooner than later if I feel like it is not improving at the speed I think it should. She said she waited too long to start demanding better help for her son, and he ended up being admitted 7 different times before they finally put a feeding tube into his stomach until they could figure out how to control his acid. I don't want Roslyn getting that far. Talking with her has made be feel very much calm about this. I wasn't totally whizzing out before, I don't know why. I've felt very calm about this this whole time. I think I'm too scared to be scared yet, haha. But now I can truly put my mind at ease and trust that this (although not normal) is fairly common.
My mom kept Jo for me today. We had gone over this morning to play for a while. Jolene can tell something is wrong. The tension between her and I is high. She was behaving incredibly strange today, even my mom took note of it. I finally passed Roslyn off to my mom and forced Jo to come cuddle with me (she sure put up a fight!). We read a couple books and took pictures of each other on my phone. She acted normal after that... for about 10 minutes. And then started right back up with her whining and crying over the weirdest things. My mom could tell I was just over tired from the night with Roslyn and not ready to deal with the tantrums for attention from Jo. I was sent home with Roslyn for a nap, and Jo agreed to stay and play with grandma and grandpa for a while. I can't sleep. I'm going to shower for a as long as the hot water will last and then go back to my mom's.