Weight

There seem to be a variety of blog posts on weight presently. It's healthy for sister's to want to lose weight, but it's unhealthy to judge yourself based on this quality alone. I've always been happy with my weight. Since my almost 1 year old is still living off of almost only breastmilk, though, I've lost probably 15 lbs and am underweight. My clothes hang off of me, and people are always commenting about how thin I am. They look at me with pity like I am anorexic. I eat and eat, but apparently not enough for two. I am on the opposite end of the weight spectrum, I am trying to GAIN weight.


22 yrs old. 5'2". 93 lbs.



Unhealthy. :/ And this current stress really doesn't help. I haven't had an appetite since Wednesday.

Things are....

a bit worse than I had anticipated. I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for my son, I would have been kicked out of the house last night.


"You're not my daughter." (mom)

"You're not my sister." (sister, obviously)

"You were my best friend and now you don't even exist." (mom)

"I've failed at my one duty in this life. I might as well blow my brains out." (mom)


We got in such a heated argument about how my son would be raised that coming home from teaching today I was half afraid that I'd come home to find my son kidnapped. It was an irrational fear, but things are really not going well right now.

My dad is begging me to continue going to church with them. I've been adamant that I am past the questioning stage, so why would I continue to go. It would only be for 'appearances' and it would be a lie. Our church is small, and very close knit. The majority of people in attendance are related to me in one way or another. My absence will not go unnoticed. They will mourn me and my son, and pity my parents. I do feel bad for my parents, because I know what's coming. But my continuing to pretend does not change the reality.

Hijab came up again. I finally just said, I've already been wearing it on weekends. "Why!?!" "I told you, I've been a Muslim since June, it's something I feel I should do."

Parental response..."You disgust me." "Who's going to hire you with that Muslim rag on your head?"

sister, 25 years old, crying in her bed overhearing quietly responds "no one."

My brother doesn't know. He's 16, though, and fairly laid back, so while he won't understand, I don't think he'll take it personally like the rest of them.



My mom has already taken care of Christmas. I will not be getting any gifts this year, it seems. I told her, "I already bought your gift." "Take it back." "I'm still going to give it to you, and I still love you."

She wouldn't tell me she loved me. She said she didn't feel any love. This morning she did reluctantly say it before i left, although now that it's just us and the baby at home we're kind of tiptoeing around each other.

I miss my best friends. (mom, sister) I hope all the anger and grief (and preaching) can get out now. I would love to eventually reach the point where we can agree to disagree.

Life as I knew it is over. I certainly hope it doesn't stay in this current state forever, though.

Still haven't told Mom...

we're very close and I'm scared of what may or may not be left of our relationship afterwards.


My dad made me go to church today. When I was not paying enough attention or not singing he would scold me. Um, singing about Jesus doesn't make me a Christian if I'm being forced......


He's begging me to read the book, "Evidence that Demands a Verdict," because it PROVES Christianity. I'll take it just to keep the peace, but I've read similar, and they all leave questions unanswered.



I want to maintain our relationship, and I know he's doing this out of love, but how can I respectfully tell him,'Dad, I've been through the searching stage already, and Christianity no longer holds the answers for me" in a way that will get him to listen? He's sticking church bulletins in my purse for goodness sake... I told him, I do not want to be having this same discussion (about Jesus being God's Son) for the next 50 years. He told me he'd "never give up on me."




I feel bad for him, I do. But quite honestly...I'm getting annoyed. :/

I am responsible...

for killing my father.


Not literally, I suppose, but emotionally. Last night things got a bit heated and he was calling me a 'liar' and a 'deceiver' and I told him I only lie to him to protect him. Of course, that brought great suspicion and "protect me from what?" I eventually just said, "Dad, I'm Muslim." Everyone else in my family was in bed, dad runs away from me pulling at his hair and cussing (I'm not aware that I've ever heard him cuss before in my 22 yrs of life). I chase him and brace myself for the discussion that I've known was going to come along sometime.

"No daughter of mine is going to be Muslim."

"You're going to Hell."

"You're an American."

"I should have sent you to a Christian school."

"Water can be solid, liquid, or gas, but it's all water." (the trinity for those of you not familiar)

"I should have never let you date (husband). You wouldn't have gotten messed up with Islam if it wasn't for him."

"I will never accept this. I will always pray for you and (husband) and (son). I'm not gonna just let you raise (your son) Muslim."


I hurt so bad. Emotionally and physically. I mean, I physically feel I might vomit occasionally. I know my dad does, too. Those statements above...they were not typed to poke fun at my dad. Neither of us is laughing. I just wanted to let you get an understanding of the response I'm up against. My dad looks at me and tears up one second, the next he's poking his finger in my face telling me I've "denied Jesus and he's not going to accept it." He loves me, and he's torn between anger and grief. I love him and I'm honestly not angry with his response (aside from his not allowing me to parent my child the way I deem appropriate). I'm all grief. I don't regret my conversion, because I've finally put God first in my life, but I do regret the pain I've brought to my father, and ultimately my family.

My mom doesn't know yet. She's real excited about some stuff we have planned for Sunday and neither dad nor I wanted to ruin it for her. I guess I'll probably need to tell her Monday then. She can tell something's totally off with my dad, and I know they'll need each other through this time. She'll react worse. She practically acted worse when I lied to her in high school about an event involving a pickup truck, four police vehicles, and a shot gun. (story for another day?) I lied about my involvement in said incident and she bawled she was so disappointed in me. "I thought I raised you Christian!"

Oooh, things are going to get so much worse before they ever have a chance of getting better.


I think my dad summed it up nicely when he said "Remember when you told me you were pregnant? I was so mad at you. But this is 100 times worse, and I will never get over it."



Prayer for us all would be nice. My son's appointment was today. That's for a separate post, but right now... I just need to lie down.

Teeth

My son -finally- got his first four teeth. At first I was thrilled at the cute little white stumps poking through his gums.....


then I woke up this morning with mastitis. Anyone else not surprised?

This may be TMI, but sometimes he bites so hard when nursing that I honestly fear my nipple might fall off. There's no weaning in sight, either, with all of these adverse reactions to food.

Whatever, we'll get through it like always. The doctor wouldn't call in my prescription without seeing me (grrr....just what I want to do when I'm sick, drive 20 minutes away, wait over an hour, and be seen for 5-10 minutes). I'll do what I have to for some antibiotics, though, I feel soooo weak.

In other news, my son's appointment at Riley is on Friday!! Excited to finally (insha'Allah) get some answers!

Hubby's birthday is Thursday, but he's at work and in class until 9 p.m. so we'll probably put off celebrating until Saturday. I thought about doing it tomorrow but I'm really in no condition to make a cake right now.

Sorry I haven't been doing a lot of blogging. Sorry as well for always blogging about my son and doctor's appointments! lol, It seems those two things are kind of running my life right now. :)

My son is tired now. Alhumdullilah. I think we both deserve a nap!

We've Got an Appointment!

The upper GI scheduled for Thursday morning was a flop, because my son wouldn't drink the barium.

I'm not surprised. The radiologist was a joke, though. He's probably a great radiologist, but he doesn't know squat about children. My son hadn't eaten for 4 hours because they wanted him to be hungry...he still wouldn't take a bottle full of barium, though. The radiologist blamed it on me not making him hungry enough. He told me I should have not let him eat for 8 HOURS. Sure, an 11 month old that eats every three hours, I'll starve him for 8 hours and then feed him barium.

Please. I explained, he's plenty hungry, but he won't even take apple juice out of a bottle, why in the world would he take barium?! The man continued to be an imbecile, complaining about my uncooperative son.

The nurse asked if we could add flavoring to try to get him to drink it...the radiologist's response: "Baby's don't taste until they're 2."

WHAT!?

So, as I said, upper GI was a flop. They asked me to reschedule and I said, no thanks, we're going to Riley Children's. Only I probably didn't say it very nicely...

The pediatrician appointment that afternoon went, um, not well. He told us to just keep trying to feed him different foods. We told him, then we'll be back in the hospital. We gave him a highlighted printout on FPIES, the condition we believe my son to have. He barely glanced at it and said, "I've never heard of it," completely dismissing it! Arrogance is not a good quality to have as a doctor, let me tell you... Because you haven't heard of it, it doesn't exist????

Sooo angry.

He finally realized we disagreed with everything he was saying and said, "We'll let Riley deal with it."

THANK YOU. That's what we came for in the first place, a referral, my gosh was that so hard??

So, we've got an appointment at Riley Children's Hospital in about 2 weeks with a pediatric gastroenterologist. Hopefully he will either know what we're talking about or know where to send us.




Why do you have to go through so many hoops to get anything done in this ridiculous healthcare system?

We're Home!

but not totally in the clear...

They never found out what was wrong. And he did have diarhhea again today at home. :/ BUT, luckily my dad finally got someone to listen!

My son's nurse yesterday got the -whooooole- story from my dad. I at first thought he was being a bit too windy, but he managed to get our point across! The nurse realized that this is NOT in fact a recurring virus and scheduled an upper GI for us tomorrow. From there we go to the pediatrician who will refer us to wherever we'd like! (at least that's what we were told...)

We plan on getting referred to Riley Children's Hospital to see a pediatric gastrointerologist. The pediatric GI will do an evaluation and send us on to an allergist if he thinks it necessary or prescribe the treatment himself if it's within he realm.

I finally feel like we're getting somewhere! Granted, all these referrals are going to take awhile what with scheduling around my schedule since Riley is close to 2 hours away.

I think it's FPIES more than ever now. (remember, my diagnosis from the first post on this issue?) I've been talking to other FPIES moms on baby center community and they've been very helpful. I just want a real diagnosis so that a) we can know how to plan for his diet and b) people will stop acting like I'm crazy or making it up.


Alhumdullilah my baby is home! Thank you for all of your prayers!

Still Hospitalized

So, it's 1:45 on Sunday afternoon and we're still at the hospital. When I took him into the ER Friday I thought we'd be out within a few hours. When they had us spend Friday night for "observation" I thought we'd be out early Saturday morning.

And now, I'm not sure we're ever leaving.

He hasn't vomitted since Friday, but has horrible diarrhea so they've still got him on an iv so that he doesn't get dehydrated again. Yesterday he perked up a few times for around 5 minutes or so, but the rest of the day he just laid around and wanted rocked. I rocked him so long that I watched 8 episodes of Little Mosque on the Prairie via youtube.

They haven't mentioned the EKG that was sent to Riley Children's Hospital since Friday...? The influenza A and B tests came back negative. His 'stool' came back positive for blood and also infection. They think he has an infection in his intestines but will not know until tomorrow. They've got him on antibiotics anyway to treat the 'probable' cause, I guess.

All these tests have brought a new problem to light, though. His hemoglobin levels are scary low, and his red blood cells are smaller than they should be. They think he could have thalassemia. I hope and pray that that's not the case, but at the same time, I WANT a diagnosis. If it's not thalassemia (which I'm not sure how it could be seeing as how my husband and I would both have to be carriers and neither of us think that we are) then I want further tests or something because people's blood cells aren't misshapen for no reason.

If it is thalassemia, depending on the severity he could need lifelong blood transfusions and iron therapy. If not treated a whole host of other problems could result (bone deformities, splee removal, heart problems, etc.)

This morning he was happy and active (as active as one can be when attached to an iv drip via the head), although he still has dreadful diarhhea. He's napping now. I'll be missing school tomorrow. It's funny how I can't imagine missing school most days but when somehting like this comes up there's not even a question of where I'll be come Monday.

Continue to keep our family in your prayers (dua's). I want my baby back home where he belongs.

Yesterday was plain awful.....

and today was 1,000,000 times worse!


Yesterday I accidentally threw my wedding ring away. I watched myself throw it away. There was never a point when I didn't know where it was. I was in the bathroom at school, I dried my hands, and it slid off and into the trashcan with the paper towel. This was a night class, so the trash can was FULL. I removed every piece of trash. Still, no ring. I then began going through each piece individually...ewwwww! swine flu, anyone? I did find it, although I still feel dirty.

Later that night, my son fell off of the changing table. I feel like a horrible mother admitting it. He fell headfirst off the end of the changing table into the hamper. I screamed in horror, he cried in fear/pain, and my dad yelled at my irresponsibility. He was quickly back to normal and playing like usual. My dad kept saying God was watching over him with that hamper, and I COMPLETELY agree! Alhumdulliah he did not get hurt besides a small scrape! But then my dad said, "we need to thank God and Jesus." ugh. Apparently he doesn't realize the Christian church actually believes God = Jesus, Jesus = God. If he understood what they really think about all that trinity stuff, maybe he'd understand my conversion.

So, that was yesterday. If I had typed this yesterday, much more attention would have been paid to detail. But after today, that's nothing.

I am typing from a hospital bed. I am not a patient. My son is. My son is in the hospital. And has been since around 3:30 (it's now midnight). My son had only thrown up that one day since our doctor visit. You may have noticed no updates, that was because he randomly had a week free of vomiting. He had been doing so well, that we no longer expected him to vomit after eating solids, he still HATES solids, but had stopped vomiting, at least. My mom fed him some baby food while I was in class today. I got home around 1:30, breastfed him shortly after, and proceeded to play with him. He was in a wonderful mood. 2 hours after eating (solids), though, the vomiting started. And didn't stop. He vomited six times at home before my mom and I finally got him in the car to go to the emergency room. It wasn't the vomiting that was so scary, it was his unresponsiveness. He was an absolute zombie. Couldn't sit up, his head seemed too heavy for his body, looked just awful. He threw up again on the way to the hospital. My husband met us there and we admitted him. They got him in very quickly because he threw up in the lobby demonstrating just how sick he actually was. Chest/stomach x-ray, CT scan to check for brain damage (due to his fall, alhumdullillah that all checked out okay). Nothing seemed to be showing them anything except for his unresponsiveness, he just LOOKED sick and thankfully they took it seriously. They took his blood and that showed a possible iron-ish (not anemia) deficiency that is more prevalent in middle easterners. When he got back from the CT scan, they tried to give him an IV. He was so dehydrated by this point, though, that they couldn't find his veins. For hours people tried to find his veins. They called a nurse from pediatrics, and then two from the NICU. One of the NICU nurses finally got the IV in a vein in his head. IN HIS HEAD. My son has an IV in his temple.

During all this iv hubub, his heartrate suddenly jumped from a safe/slightly high 165ish (babies are normally much higher than adults) to a frightening 250. I saw the nurses face as she motioned someone to tell the doctor of this new development. Sooo frightening. High heartrate indicates possible fever, so the retook his temperature. The 98 degrees that he arrived with had now jumped to 102.7. This is the point when they tell me he must have an infection, and it could be surrounding his brain. In my mind I think, why do I know this is bad? Brain, infection, MENINGITIS. They think my son could have meningitis. I have a friend who recently had both legs amputated after almost dying from meningitis, and they think my son could have it, as well.

"Mom, we need you to sign the papers for the spinal tap. " spinal fluid. needle. brain. meningitis.

"I'm not sure if my husband's okay with this. Could you give us a chance to decide?"

After being brainwashed by my parents and the doctor that this was the best thing to do, I reluctantly signed the paper. I was then ushered from the room where they'd hurt my baby without me there to comfort him. They. are. hurting. my. baby. is all my brain could think. Once I got back to the waiting room I cried. I leaned on my husband and cried. I went to the bathroom, and sobbed. After slightly composing myself, I sat in the waiting room. They called me back after the procedure, and my son was fine, lol. Better than before the spinal tap, even. Alhumdullillah! The spinal tap was clear and he does NOT have meningitis! Regardless, they gave him tylenol and an antibiotic to fight the fever. They also did an EKG when they sent to Riley Children's Hospital so a cardiologist there could go over it.

So, here we are now, spending the night to be observed. He's sleeping. His fever's down to 100 an his heartrate's 145. Before falling asleep he was laughing and saying mama mama, baba baba. Wonderful to see him back to himself.


But...we still don't know what's wrong. We know what's NOT wrong, which is a step in the right direction. There's no meningitis, no stomach obstruction, no lung problems, and no brain damage. There may be a heart problem, there may be celiac disease, there may be something else entirely.

One day at a time. One day at a time.


There's my update. I'm beat.

Goodnight.