Summers Stories: Mystery Reactions Solved?

Last Monday I woke up in Boston, just as another major snowstorm began.

My flight was scheduled to depart at 6:45 a.m. We finally took off at almost 1:00 p.m. We were lucky, though; we were one of 4 flights that my airline was actually able to get in the air that morning. The rest were cancelled.

After arriving back in Chicago, I was relieved to discover the rest of my trip had cancelled as well…I could go straight home!

While waiting for my flight home, I called my Mom to see how the kiddos were doing.

That’s when I learned that while I was trudging through a small blizzard to the airport that morning, Zac had vomited.

While I spent hours sitting on an airplane going no where, Zac had endured extreme stomach pain that made him clench his body so tightly he was immobile as he cried and screamed. This happened about every ten minutes for over four hours.

While I anxiously sat in limbo, uncertain when or even whether  I could get home to my family, my little Zac sat at home refusing to eat all day and having frequent liquid diarrhea diapers.

There was nothing I could do; I was almost a thousand miles away.

But when I landed, I raced home as fast as I could.

The boys weren’t asleep yet; I arrived home just at bedtime. So I went straight to the boys.

When I said “hello” to them, they both lit up to see me. When I said to Zac “Hi, honey. Grandma said you didn’t feel good today. Does your tummy hurt?” He looked at me with a sad face and said “uh-huh” in the saddest little voice ever.

My heart hurt.

Darrel and I decided to pull goat milk. Goat milk is still safe for Zac, I believe, but I’m suspicious of the new supplier of goat milk. So we had to pull it to see if that is the cause of the last two weeks of problems and the acute reaction he had on Monday.

Tuesday morning he had a rotten, awful diaper fairly early in the day, but he regained his appetite and when asked, confirmed that his tummy did NOT hurt that day. Whew!

Then Jed went to the potty. Despite being perfectly capable of wiping himself, he occasionally insists that we do it for him. This was one of those occasions. When I wiped him, a glob of mucousy blood came with the poop.

The poop itself was layered in the toilet. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say, there were at least three major problems with that poop, not even counting the bloody mucous.

Later that afternoon, Jed decided to make cookies and dumped my colored dextrose all over the dining room. During clean-up, I found residue of blue finger paints on the table. (Don’t ask me how; we’re usually obsessive about cleaning up.)

Despite reporting that he felt fine all day, that night Zac woke up in the middle of the night and came to our bed. Wednesday morning he woke me up…by vomiting on me. Twice.

We went to take a bath while Darrel stripped the bed, and after that, he seemed perfectly fine. His attitude was good and he was playing and energetic. He didn’t have much of an appetite, but he did eat. His poop wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad, either.

And I had to get packed to fly back to work. That day.

Based on what Zac ate on Tuesday, Darrel made the decision to also pull beef from Zac’s diet. We also decided to lock away all art supplies for the time being.

In two days, my son lost goat milk, beef, and art supplies. And vomited. And had diarrhea. And intense pain.

And I had to leave him in the middle of all of that.

If someone had sucker punched me on Wednesday on my drive to the airport, it couldn’t have hurt any worse than knowing I was leaving my boys when they aren’t doing well.

A friend pointed out that some viruses cause bloody stool, which could explain some of what we’re experiencing.

But with FPIES and food intolerances, it’s foolish to assume a normal childhood malady until evidence clearly points to such. You have to assume it’s the food and act quickly, just in case.

We were left with mystery food reactions. Is it the goat milk? The beef? The art supply residue?

And what about Jed? What caused him to suddenly, after over a year, have bloody poop? (He also had red “slapped cheeks” on Wednesday, though we didn’t go outside. A typical problem sign.)

You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? I decided to give a little pictoral reference for how this sort of thing makes a food allergy/FPIES parent feel.

Here is a normal person.

Freedom! Space around them to go wherever they want, do whatever they want to do.

Here is a food allergy/FPIES parent.

Just because their child can be hurt by food, half of their freedom is gone already. They are backed into a corner. But it’s tolerable, because there is still some freedom and movement available to them.

Now you’ve got an allergy parent dealing with food reactions – especially mystery reactions. This is what that feels  like.

That little bit of freedom is gone, and in it’s place are monsters attacking.

You feel cornered and trapped. It’s fight or flight time.

This kind of stress is usually akin to dark alleys at night.

We live it daily, never knowing when the monsters will attack.

I had to leave my babies when they weren’t feeling well, and it absolutely killed me.

Then Thursday came, and I suddenly began to feel…off. Not sick. Just not well. Friday I spoke with my Mom early in the day and heard that Jed had vomited twice and had a nasty poop in the morning. By the end of the day, he’d vomited again.

Zac, meanwhile, was feeling and acting like a perfectly healthy little boy.

Darrel, like me, was not feeling 100%.

So when I left, we were suspicious of the milk, the beef, or the art supplies, aware that a slim chance existed that a virus was to blame but not daring to hope for it, but by Saturday morning it was clear that the Summer’s have been hit by a very strange, very mild stomach bug of some sort.

Thanks to FPIES, I consider a stomach bug to be some of the best news in the world!

But what a rotten week.

We’ve kept beef, milk and art supplies pulled from Zac’s life, however, just in case one of those was actually causing a problem in conjunction with the stomach bug. We will reintroduce them one at a time to make absolutely sure they’re safe before moving on to more food trials.

Sigh.

Remember when I said this year started off with an inauspicious start? I really hope it starts to improve soon. So far 2015 has been exhausting.

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Has anyone heard of a weird stomach bug that hits slowly and last for days going around? This is a new type of stomach bug for me.