Continued from Part 1.
So we went home at around 10pm on June 17th.
I immediately scheduled a sick-visit with Lauren’s own pediatrician, Dr. NH for Monday.
During the whole day Sunday, we can sense Lauren straining at the time of bowel movement, and her poop still smelled odd.
On Sunday night, I called Oakland Children’s Hospital trying to get some clarification on the re-introduction of milk into Lauren’s diet. Dr. T called me back and left a message saying I can just completely remove Pedialyte from her diet and give her milk only after 24 hours. He also told me that Lauren’s stool culture came back negative for any bacteria that could cause diarrhea. That was a great relief since all of us thought Lauren had some form of bacterial related gastroenteritis.
Jay called me on Sunday night, and I passed him the good news so he can share it with our church friends.
On Monday June 19th, we brought Lauren to Dr. NH’s office for a visit. Dr. NH confirmed the the original diagnosis by Dr. H, saying this could be just diarrhea, and we don’t need to give Lauren any medication, maybe we should introduce Rice Cereal to form up her stool. By now, Lauren looked much better, and is no longer as fussy. However, we can still sense a general discomfort in her, so we left with some doubts in mind.
Come Tuesday, Lauren’s again improving a bit more. However, I then got a call from a Dr. R from Oakland Children’s Hospital. He told me that they just found a very rare form of bacteria in Lauren’s stool culture. The name of the bacteria is Aeromonas, which is common in fresh water fish. I asked Dr. R why it took so long to identify the bacteria, and was told it is uncommon and takes awhile to get to critical mass.
Now Lauren has been drinking a mix of JY’s milk and formula only, does not even have any solid food. So we suspected contamination during our sterilization process inside the kitchen where we do often cook fresh water fish. The doctor called also gave Lauren an antibiotic – Cephalexin to combat this bacteria, and we were told to give it to her for seven days.
I immediately called Dr. NH, and was told to start giving it to her.
The Cephalexin comes in a pink bottle, with crimson red and cherry flavoring. However, it must be administered cold using a dropper, directly from the fridge, which Lauren didn’t enjoy that much. She learned to push out the liquid with her tongue, and was very successful at wasting a lot of it. Thankfully, we got a lot extra, and was able to get the required amount down.
On Wednesday though, Lauren started to pass large amount of stool again, and again we saw some streaks of blood in her stool. Again, I called Dr. NH again, and was told to continue her milk/formula, and the antibiotics.
We can see some improvement in her though, she’s no longer straining as much and giggled a lot more. Her poop also smelled much better, almost to the point of having no smell at all.
Now fast forward to June 29th, it’s the first day after we stopped the Cephalexin. Lauren suddenly had three stools within 45 minutes again. Although this time it didn’t smell and there is no blood in them. I called Dr. NH, and I think he’s finally fed up with me calling him almost daily. He signed a stool culture slip, and asked me to pick up and get it to a lab on Friday.
I actually took June 30th off, in the early afternoon, I got the slip from Dr. NH’s office, and brought a freshly soiled diaper to the lab. At the lab, the attendant actually gave me a pair of latex gloves and a spoon, and instructed me to scrape the poop off the diaper into a small plastic container. As you can imagine, I was not used to doing this kind of tasks, so it took awhile to scrape the poop off, and I accidentally poured some of the liquid inside the container down the toilet. I asked the attendant, and was told it’s not a problem, the liquid is only there to indicate the level.
I’m going to call on Monday to check on the result.
Please pray for us that the result come back negative for any bacteria, and that there won’t be a part 3 to this story.
Thanks.