The Trials Have Begun! – and “How to Toddler-Proof Your Hotel Room Door”

Thursday night last week, I received a distressing phone call.  My grandmother had been taken to the hospital, and my aunt was told that “it didn’t look good” and that she should “call the family in”.

As it was late, the kids were asleep, and Darrel and I were both exhausted (not to mention we hadn’t packed or prepared), we made the tough call to NOT get on the road immediately but to instead get a good nights sleep and leave as soon as possible on Friday morning.

We hit it like gangbusters on Friday: packing clothes, toys, pre-cooking almost two full days worth of food for me, packing 7 grocery sacks full of safe foods and one ice chest of frozen beef…and it still took us until late evening to get on the road.

Still, after a 7 hour drive, we were there and very relieved that so far, Nana was somewhat stable.  We weren’t too late.

Saturday she seemed to actually be improving.  Sunday morning (Easter!) she was improving so much that talks began of moving her to a nursing home that specialized in rehabilitation so she could get her strength built back up and be able to move back home!

We stayed anyway; due to the frantic nature of the call, family had come in from all over the U.S.  There was an uncle and a cousin I hadn’t seen in years, and it turned out to be a stressful, scary little family reunion.  Besides, she wasn’t out of the woods, yet.

A friend had a hotel room that she graciously offered us to use, which was conveniently located directly across the street from the hospital.  That made it a LOT easier to control the boys “accidental exposure” levels, and keep me in food as the hotel had a refrigerator and microwave in the room.

Every other day I would drive the almost hour to my Nana’s house, cook two days worth of food for me, and drive back to the hotel to stand watch with my family.

It was exhausting.

So exhausting, that we were worried about Jed sneaking out of the hotel room at night while we slept.  He showed a keen interest in opening the door and leaving the room right from the start, and successfully managed to escape us twice during daylight hours (though he was quickly caught).  Using the bar-chain across the door was a deterrent, but we feared it to be a short-lived one.

We noticed him watching us studiously as we flipped it closed and open, and knew that if he could wrangle some uninterrupted time, he’d push a suitcase or chair over to the door, open that latch, move the booster out of the way, and be free!  (Have I mentioned that he’s very clever?)

So, I developed my own version of “Jed-proofing the hotel room door:

Can’t quite see?  Here’s a better shot:

THAT is a hotel bath towel placed over the door handle, covered with a plastic bag, and taped to the door.

If he can’t make the handle move, he can’t open the door, right?

And sure, he could un-tape it, but I truly believed that this would be an effective measure to stop a sneaky two year old from getting out.  Un-doing the tape would require motor skills I’m not quite sure he’s exactly expert at, yet.

Oh, and the concern about “What would have happened if there was a fire in the hotel?”

It’s all about odds, folks.  I’ve been staying in hotels 10-20 nights per month since 1998.  In all that time I’ve had only TWO fire alarms go off – both of which were false alarms.

In one day, Jed had managed to open the door 6 times, and twice made it out of the room and down the hallway.

Which one was more likely to occur?

(Besides, as a grown up, I could have had that towel off the door in seconds.)

I found it amusing, though, to have to go to such lengths to thwart the devious plans of my toddler!  And I was quite proud of my ingenuity, too.  It isn’t often that I’m that many steps ahead of him, sad to say.

And it worked, too.  He never escaped the hotel room at night.

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Because we were able to so closely control Zac for so many days, he finally stopped reacting to the pear tree buds from our front yard.

On Wednesday, after arriving home from Nana’s bedside and having such a stressful weekend and two long days of bad news, we decided that we really needed something positive to happen in our lives; this was probably as good as Zac was going to get, baseline-wise, so we did it.

We gave Zac probiotics.

The FPIES Mama’s have all advised to go very slowly with probiotics.  Not only can Zac still technically “fail” probiotics with a full blown FPIES reaction, but even if he can tolerate them, they usually result in something called “die-off”.

This is where the probiotic gets in the kiddos gut, starts growing Good gut bacteria, which results in Bad gut bacteria “dying off”.  This dying off can result in strange reactions in kiddos…bad intestinal problems, sleep disturbances, behavior problems, etc., as the bad bacteria vacate the body.

If the kiddo has too much of the good stuff grow too quickly, it’s as if their body can’t handle the transition and they are more likely to fail it, or have extremely severe die off symptoms that cause pain.

So go slow, let the probiotics s l o w l y grow the good bacteria and s l o w l y kill the bad bacteria for best results.

I mixed a single serving of the probiotic we have to use (it’s expensive, but we can’t find anything else that doesn’t have fillers and additives) in 4 ounces of water, then poured a single ounce into a bottle for Zac.

He really doesn’t like bottles.  We had to fight a bit to get him to drink it, but eventually, drink it, he did!

We were scared.  Thrilled and excited, but terrified.  We kept a close eye all night, and the next day.

That night he slept like a dream – even better than he normally does!  Instead of waking every 1.5-2 hours all night long, he had at least three 3 hour stretches between wake-ups!

Thursday he had a great day!  His farts were noxious, which is unusual for him, but other than that he was just fine.  He slept well for naps, was just as happy and bouncy as he usually is, and all in all I was starting to relax.

Then, 24 hours after his first dose, he had a poopy diaper and WOW!  WOW!!!

I have said in here before that he had diapers that were solid mucous…I was mistaken.  THIS was SOLID mucous!  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it was truly that gross.

I tested it for blood, and it came back negative.

So, fingers crossed that the mucous diaper is just a “die off” symptom, and that what we’re doing is working out.  I’m praying SO hard that his little body can handle this and we can move on to foods soon.

If this is truly die off, then the diaper just proves how totally wrecked his little insides are.  I’ve taken probiotics before, and never saw anything even remotely like this.  Jed has been on these probiotics for over a month, and we saw nothing like this with him, either.  So this is proof that poor Zac just has a terribly messed up GI tract, and it breaks my heart.

God willing, the probiotics will help heal up his system enough to handle food.

And I’m SO glad I listened to my gut and did the probiotics before we started food.  I believe he would have struggled to succeed with any foods we offered if his system is so out of whack.

Here’s hoping we have a reaction free weekend!  (Please pray…hard. Thanks!)

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Nana is doing well, by the way.  She’s in a nursing home near her house, and it is the first nursing home I’ve ever been in that didn’t give me the heebie jeebies the minute I walked in.  Everyone there – staff and residents – had huge smiles on their faces and joy in their actions.

They have a beauty salon, regular group games, fantastic rehabilitation equipment and most of all, respect and enthusiasm.

One of Nana’s oldest friends is a long-term, permanent resident of the home, and they’ve enjoyed being able to see each other daily since Nana arrived.

It’s a good place for her for now, and hopefully she’ll bounce back and be at her own home, soon.

She’s 89 years old and has lived a full, productive life, but I’m grateful she fought back and has more time with us.

Jed really loves his Nana.