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Friday, June 13, 2008

We really do hate...

BARF. We hate barf and all that it entails. No Elizabeth does have the stomach flu. We are still dealing with her weekly vomits spells and even though they are not as frequent it is still hard to deal with. It is like living with a mini volcano you never know when (or where) she will erupt and spew forth. There are so many variables to her vomiting that it can be hard to pinpoint what has caused it but we can still narrow it down to crying, swallowing food whole, reflux, anxiety, allergies and poor oral-motor coordination.
Last week was one of the scary moments that has lead us to not traveling long distances without another adult. Elizabeth had another huge choking spell on the way home from Toronto on a very busy stretch of highway. I noticed her gagging in my rearview and by the time I crossed 2 lanes to pull over with my hazards on Elizabeth had choked until she vomited all over the car. As there was no side lanes I had stopped a full lane of traffic on the highway to get Elizabeth out of her car seat whack her on the back and try to dispose of as much barf as I could so I get her back in the car. Thanks to the MTO vehicle that saw my difficulty and he pulled behind me and left his lights flashing until I sorted her out. Of course it was a day where heat and humidity were high and the next 2 hrs in the car was difficult to tolerate as the smell was overpowering. Despite thorough cleaning I cannot get the smell out of my car.
We have to get back to some more oral-motor work as we have been slacking here at home and go back to her reminders to chew as she is back to swallowing foods whole. We also have upped her stomach meds as she has been a bit more gaggy/barfy lately. On a good note we saw her Pediatrician today and she has gained 3lbs in 6mths YEAH, she is even a bit squishy in areas.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi there, i "know you" from PBM. we deal with lots of vomit here too. the best odor remover for my car has been 2 large fresh lemons squeezed into a few cups of club soda. scrub it into "the spots" and it takes away most of the odor. you might have to do this a few times, but it works for us!
good luck,
ashley

abby said...

Oh, this is oh so hauntingly familiar. We keep a vomit bucket in the back of the car and I always ride in the back with Hallie to try to catch her spews when they happen. She even christened the new car on its very first weekend, so that odd new car smell was replaced with an odor far too hauntingly familiar. Oy! I hope that you guys have less and less of this as the years go on, and that we do, too. I really do think so much is allergy related, but figuring out the allergy puzzle is apparently even harder than figuring out the reflux and feeding puzzles. Great.