Friday, February 3, 2012

Sick Babies and Dairy Free Living

Just got home today from my first 'overnight hospital stay' with a sick baby.  Poor Toby gave us quite a scare.  He has always been a bit stuffy-nosed (oddly) since birth, and many times people would comment that when he coughed, he sounded croupy.  But he was never really 'sick' with these symptoms.  If anything, they were irritating for us because 1. he is a noisy sleeper and 2. he doesn't always sleep well because he's so stuffed up and needs to be held upright.  Not. Fun.


Well, all of a sudden this stuffiness created a real problem when added to it he became very mucousy causing him to choke, gag, and sputter.  AND he developed a very serious sounding croupy cough.  All of this together + the middle of the night = a bit of fear and panic on our parts.  He was struggling so hard to breathe and would have these huge coughing fits.  


Somehow we made it through the night and he seemed to bounce back enough to sleep.  But, by morning his symptoms were the same so we did the practical and safe thing and took him to the ER (despite my nurse-sub-conscious screaming "am I being over-cautious? won't they just send us home?")  Well, they didn't think so.  They took us in and admitted us to the ward to keep a close eye on Toby.


A few masks of nebulized epinephrine, some steroids, and a night and morning later and I was scratching my head wondering why we needed to stay there.  All along he looked great (despite sounding like an old smoker with his raspy, throaty voice) and smiled often.  He was a happy little sick baby!  


All in all, despite that this could have been a scary time we felt very provided for and cared for.  The first face we saw in the Pediatric ward was a friend from Church, another friend works in the same hospital and brought me coffee [thanks courtney!] and visited. We also had some family visit and Jason got to do some work from a quiet hospital room for a change!  I even got to make some progress reading a book.


{Okay, it wasn't all fun and games. I slept for only 2 hours.  But it could have been much worse.}


I was very grateful my Mom was around to watch Silas through all of this and also thankful for family that jumped up and came over to be with us.  Sigh.  God is good.


At the end of it all, we were wondering why in the world Toby is snuffly to begin with.  Is it the shape of his nose?  Dr. didn't think so.  A floppy upper airway?  Not sure.  Perhaps reflux- without the spit up?  He's on ranitidine now to see.  OR the big one, perhaps he's sensitive to dairy.  Gulp.


No more dairy for mommy.  How am I going to survive?  As soon as I came home I looked in my fridge and was astonished at how much dairy I really consume and how little non-dairy options I had available.  Sour creams, cream cheese, cheese, yogurt, milk, cream, butter- my fridge is stocked full.  Oh man.  Already I'm craving sweets and wondering how I'll do this.  But then, I don't want to make Toby's breathing more challenging! I'll have to make due.  I started looking up recipes online and was a bit discouraged.  Swordfish soup? Seriously, that's the best non-dairy dinner out there?  Tofu pumpkin pie?  Seriously?  


Okay, is there anyone who can help me out and point out some good tricks for going dairy-free and maybe give me some good recipes?

3 comments:

  1. You!!! I'm lactose! And can cook dairy free. I have a vegan recipe book if you'd like it! I found that the key was changing! Cheese and yogurt were the hardest (and those are the only two I will still eat ... shhh) because alternatives to those are way less delicious. Let me know if you want the recipe book!

    ReplyDelete
  2. yes. thanks! I'd love to borrow it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm dairy sensitive as well. Asian foods generally don't have dairy in them, so our family does a lot of stir-frys etc. That and shake'n'bake. ;p

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...