By His Stripes We Were Healed

So, Kristen has been sick. For a while now.

Since November, she gets sick every 3-4 weeks. She wakes up and starts throwing up and has diarrhea. It lasts for a few hours, then is gone. She is fine after that. It starts with stomach cramps, she goes through it all, then sleeps for a while and wakes up ready to eat and feeling completely fine. No one else gets it.

Last month, I took her to the doctor and they ran blood tests and urine test and stool test on her and she came back slightly anemic, though her iron levels were good, but everything else was fine. Then we went a month, and she woke up this morning at 4am throwing up with diarrhea. She did it for an hour and a half straight. She was falling asleep on the toilet for a minute, then would wake up to throw up in the garbage. At 5am, I called the on-call doctor. He, not know the whole story, said no big deal, don't bring her in . I sent my doctor's nurse an email and I got a call at 8:30am to bring her in. We ran more tests, more blood work, more urine samples. The doctor is sending us to a pediatric gastrointestinal doctor and we'll probably have to have her stomach scoped.

I've had her to this doctor a few times lately. I'm worried about this and her weight. She is 7 and weighs 92 pounds. We've talked about a lot of stuff with the doctor. We've gotten her in to see a Christian counselor. She's been going for a couple of weeks now and I'm hoping that will help her with some of her anxiety stuff. I've wondered that this stomach thing is due to anxiety.

At times, we knew she had overeaten the night before, like when she ate dinner at home, then ate dinner at the neighbors and came home from a sleepover at 3am with a tummy ache. Other times, we've seen it related to stress, like the morning she thought she was leaving to see her dad and she was scared to go. Then there have been other times when those things didn't seem to be present, until you examine Kristen more closely.

In school and around home, she is a well-behaved, relaxed, easy-going child. Around others, she is not any of those things. Sometimes it drives us crazy! We will go see family and when you go see family, you want your children to act really well. Kristen ruins that for us. She gets loud and knocks things over, spills things, acts out and fidgets. It's embarrassing. Around my mom, she will eventually, like if we stay the night or something, come around. When you talk to her about how see feels, it's always good. For example, yesterday we spent the day at Justin's dad's house. I asked her on the way to the doctor how it makes her feel there and if she is scared of anything, etc. No, she says she is happy and she loves to be around her family and she hasn't seen them in a while and likes to be with them. When you're in the situation and you ask her how she feels, she says things are great. She has no idea she is experiencing any kind of anxiety, but Justin and I both see it so clearly. She is so much different and high strung. Then she came home and talked with her dad online. It was a high stress for her. And really, it doesn't matter who it is. She acts great at home and at school - 2 places she is very familiar with. Any where else is different. She has problems across the street, at all of our family's houses, anything social, and it often ends like this.

So the doctor mentions cyclic vomiting syndrome and WOW. I'm still going to have the scope done on her and I'm going to give her medicine to reduce the acid in her stomach. We're going to explore all of the purely medical avenues, but I really think this is it. It fits so well and it amazes me that it exists. For Kristen, it begins very, very early in the morning and lasts a few hours. It is the exact same thing every 3-4 weeks.

I hoping that the counselor can give her some kick butt coping techniques and we can get through this. I'm so sad that my baby girl goes through this. It's heartbreaking!