Birmingham

Sorry I was not about to post last night, I appreciate everyone understanding and cooperation for letting Cade and I recooperate after the journey. The first few parts are about our eventful trip up and back and the last will be about his doctors appointment. If you do read about the trip up and back you wont be disappointed.

So let me start out with what happened Tuesday on our way up. The trip started out fine, we left around 1:15pm. We made it to Montgomery with no major issues. However, once we got to Montgomery that was a different issue. If you haven't been to Montgomery then let me tell you they are doing MAJOR road construction. So I am suppose to take 231 to 65 North. But they have now closed the exit to 65 North since last I had been there. Let me also say that Montgomery is not a very pleasant city, however, I have only been to the areas surrounding the highway. After realizing I can no longer take the direct route to 65 north, I start looking for detour signs. 5 miles down the highway I finally find one. That leads me on a 20 minute detour to 65 north. Luckily at this point Cade is awake but happy. So then we sit in traffic on 65 north. They have taken four lanes down to two divided lanes and for some reason the lane I picked was at a standstill, while the other lane was cruising on by. And because of the concrete barriers, I wasn't in a position to jump the lane. So we sit, and sit and sit and then it starts to smell. At this point in the day the temp outside is 92 degrees. So I am sitting there thinking how Cade must have really did a number in that diaper. So I begin plotting where and when I can finally pull over at a gas station to change him. But as we travel the smell gets worse and worse. Finally I see the cars way ahead of me go really fast, while the few in front still stopped. After another 10 minutes I reach the point they were at. And I sit there for a minute looking at the 1 ton of raw unprocessed meat that is piled across the two lanes of traffic wondering how I am suppose to get our little car across it. The smell was overwhelming and I started to gag, so I gunned it. Past that was the truck that was carrying it. It was no normal semi, it was one of those long dump trucks with no lids. After I got home yesterday we all went to dinner and John kept commenting on how the car still smelled. So I am pretty sure there are still parts to what every animal that was stuck to the underneath of our car.

We finally make it to Birmingham, where the instructions I was giving from the hospital told us to turn south instead of north. So after realizing the exits were #7, getting smaller and I needed 17, I then had to drive 11 more miles to find an exit I could turn around on. Finally I find the hospital. John told me I was silly for always booking hotel rooms ahead of time and should just wait until I see what is down there to find one. However, there were no hotels down there! So I end up in a parking lot trying to figure out what to do. I drove around (with Cade screaming) for about 30 minutes trying to find something and decided that before I got lost, I should go back to a more populated parking lot. So I sat there, on the phone with John, and learned he doesn't really know much about computers. He started arguing with me that there wasn't such thing as a history button. I was trying to get him to go to a website for the hospital that i visited last week. It had listed all the hotels in the area, but since John said I needed to "play it on the fly", I didn't print off the sheet or make a reservation. Finally, I hung up on him and "stalked" this lady who had her son with her. She was so nice. I asked her where some hotels where and she asked why and I explained. She said that her son has MS and that she goes there all the time. She invited me back to her house for dinner and to use the Internet to find a hotel. I told her it was ok, but she gave me a deposit slip out of her checkbook with all her information on it. She called her husband and he told her to get me to 280, which I did and found a few hotels to stay at. Nothing like a eventful trip up to keep me awake.

On the way home, it wasn't much different. I got lost, again trying to get from 65 south to 231. They are stupid people in Montgomery. They list 231 on an exit, then you exit, then 15 miles down they tell you it is only for 231 north. So I have to turn around at the Montgomery docks and find my way back to the highway. Then on 231 about 30 miles outside of Montgomery I saw it. Have you ever seen someone die? The moment their life is gone? I have seen it. Yesterday I was a few minutes late for that one moment in life, but I have seen it before. There were a few semis on the opposite side, a few bodies in the center divide and a few cars, one completely unrecognizable in the center lane. No emergency vehicles anywhere and I didn't pass any on the way home, so they must have come from behind me. There was still dirt, smoke and debris in the air when I passed. I will never forget it. When I drove by there was this women kneeling beside someone on the ground. She was just screaming. You could hear it through the glass.

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For being the south and AL having the third worst health care, the facility was outstanding. The service was better than at children's in St. Louis and I think the doctor was too. Our appt was at 12:30 and we got in right on time. The nurse practitioner talked to us for awhile about everything and then the doctor came in. I was so happy to see it was a woman and glad she spoke fairly good english. We talked for awhile. She ruled out PS because if he had that he would be getting worse. He weighed 16.7 pounds. She says the he defiantly has severe reflux. Next she asked if he had blood in his stool. I said no, for the obvious reason we haven't. Then she told me how when there is a allergy present the colon becomes inflamed and microscopic particles of blood will be passed into the stool. Luckily Cade had just had a diaper change so she took a sample from that. She showed me how the test worked and sure enough, there was blood in his stool. I told her how both John and I were allergic to milk when we were young and she asked if he had been tested. I told her we tried soy formula. She said that 75% of people who are allergic to milk are also allergic to soy. Which makes sense since he was the sickest when we tried soy. So she order a lot of blood tests including testing for certain food allergies. We wont get the results for a few days so please be patient and we will call you or I will email everyone with the results. It is much easier to email so we don't have to explain ourselves four times over (it also makes me stressed out when I have to do that). So please understand we are not calling because we don't want to talk or explain what is wrong. I didn't even really tell John until I got home yesterday because I was upset about the accident and stressed from going up there all alone. Its not easy holding your son down for 10 minutes kicking and screaming while they draw blood. But it was John's choice not to go.

His doctor prescribed a new medication for his reflux, giving me twice the dosage since he is a severe case. He has stopped the formula he was one and once again is on liquid gold. This time it is similac alimentum. It is a hypoallergenic formula. We also have to add one tablespoon of cereal per ounce of formula. So basically we are feeding him breakfast at every meal. We are going today to our favorite store to buy the old fashioned bottles. They are cheaper and since the expensive ones we have cost $5 to replace one nipple, I would rather not cut holes in them. John already cut a hole to big in one, so I figured it would be cheaper to replace the other ones. Cade also has to get a weight check every week now. Hopefully this will all work. We go August 6 for a follow up. If it doesn't work then he will have to have an endoscopy done. But last night we gave him a bottle with everything changed and all he did was dribble a bit. So I have faith this will work. I just want to say "i told you so" to all those people who told me nothing was wrong with him and don't tell me my child is fine when as his mother I knew something was wrong, including John. I love my boys, but sometimes only a mother knows what is best.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions just let me know.