A health update on Gianna

If you follow this blog, or follow me on Facebook I'm sure you've heard me mention that my little Coco has been sick for quite a while.  


On Thursday night around 10:30 she cried out "Ow, mommy, ow!" I ran into her room and her stomach was distended unlike anything I'd ever seen. It looked like there were red stretch marks on her tummy and it was hard as a rock. She was hunched down in pain, and holding onto her tummy. I called the after hours advice line and they told me to get her into the ER immediately. Tony was working, but he left and met me there. We were at our local hospital where they ran all sorts of tests and x-rays on her. 

The only thing that would keep her (somewhat) happy in the ER was watching YouTube videos of puppies and kittens.

Right after she was hooked up to an IV

On her x-ray the ER doctor saw lots of pockets of air (extreme gas) and also thought there might be a blockage in her intestines. Around 3:30 am he decided that we needed to be transferred to UCSF via ambulance. UCSF has a world-renowned children's medical team and they wanted us there. 

On her way to UCSF, in the ambulance.

We arrived around 5am and were put in the children's critical care unit. They monitored her for hours, and around noon on Friday they moved us to the normal children's ward. (Much more cheerful-looking than the critical care unit.) 

Poor Coco got only two hours of sleep Thursday night, and well into Friday. Once my mom got to the hospital late Friday afternoon she fell asleep within minutes. My mom has the magic touch.

After lots of monitoring, iv's, blood work, stool samples and very little eating for Coco they decided that we could go home around 5:30 pm. 


The diagnosis (for now) is "post viral gastro". Basically since she was so sick for so long (over three weeks of vomiting and diarrhea around the clock) that her gut/intestines got exhausted and decided to slow way down. Therefore things aren't moving through her at the rate they normally would. We still don't know what caused her to get so sick for so long, and are waiting on one final lab result that could take up to a week to get back.


We had a follow-up doctor's appointment this morning. We are able to feed Gianna very, very small portions of foods hourly. We'll have another follow-up appointment in a few days to determine whether or not she needs further testing and imaging done with a GI specialist, as at this point the fear is that her intestines could be twisting. She's making good progress (had a solid poop - her first solid poop in almost a month!) and the vomiting has stopped. We're praying hard that her doctor will be confident that it's not the intestines twisting (there wasn't any evidence of that on the first x-ray) and that she was just being overly cautious in even thinking that it could be a possibility. Coco's in pretty good spirits today, and is hungry! All she wants to do is eat, eat, eat! It's hard to let her have just a little bit of food, but we know it's for the best. 


Anyways, thank you again for your prayers. Please keep them coming!