Monthly Archives: November 2008

Baby C Discharged From Hospital Today

Baby C and I were ‘discharged’ from the hospital today. We don’t have to go back for the antibiotics drips as the urine culture done on Sunday (results out today) showed that there is no more bacteria growth. I can only pray to God that there will be no more growth of bacteria ever, period. It really breaks everybody’s hearts to see what Baby C has to go through but this tough nut of mine is really resilient and strong willed.

Pictures taken yesterday. Baby C refused to be placed in the hostpital crib. The moment she’s placed on the crib, she will start wailing for she would assume that she will be poked and pricked. So hubby and I had to take turns carrying her throughout the drips.

Her IV line was removed prematurely last night. I shall blog about this when I have the time.

Baby C on daddy’s shoulders. She had cried till she fell asleep.

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Baby C On Antibiotics IV Drip

Baby C is admitted to Pantai Medical Centre for another UTI but we were allowed to take home leave. She has to be brought to the hospital for the antibiotics drips twice a day, at 10am and 10pm.

These pix were taken yesterday morning. She was fast asleep during the drips and didn’t cry…. but things weren’t that smooth sailing during the evening drips as the IV line got jammed up. The needle was hooked to her skin and the nurses spent almost half an hour trying to fix it…. with her bawling and screaming away in pain till she puked. Luckily I brought along a small basin in my bag and she didn’t puke on her clothes or on the bed.


The left bottle contains glucose and the one of the right is the antibiotics.

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Baby C Has Yet Another UTI

Baby C has another UTI.  This time there’s Proteus bacteria in the urine.   Hubby and I spent the whole afternoon at Pantai Medical Center to get her admitted, but as usual, we were allowed to take home leave.  The same torturous procedures took place where the doctor had to find her vein to set an IV line.  Thankfully it was a success this time as Baby C has lost her chubbiness and thus, it was easier for the doctor to see a vein.  This time, I wasn’t allowed to be in the Procedures Room and all I could do was to wait outside, hearing her wail and praying hard that God will remove all her pain.

She was given a bottle of antibiotics through the IV line on her hand, which lasted several minutes.  The antibiotics has to be injected twice a day – 10am and 10pm for 5 days. 

The bacteria Proteus is resistant to most antibiotics that’s considered safe, so our 2 doctors had a hard time trying to find an alternative antibiotics for Baby C.  Proteus is sensitive to 3 antibiotics but these antibiotics have adverse side effects, if given on a long term basis.  One of the side effects is that it may hinder bone growth. 

I really wonder why Baby C is so prone to getting UTIs despite being on daily antibiotics and despite me trying my level best to keep her diaper area clean and doing everything that the doctor had advised me to do.  Sigh…..

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Baby C Has Diarrhea

Baby C has been purging for the past 1 week, since Friday last week. I really don’t know what is causing the diarrhea as she has not been eating anything new or unusual. She is still breastfed exclusively and my diet has not been altered either… I didn’t eat anything unusual either. The diarrhea could be due to the bacteria in her urine…. that’s what our pediatric nephrologist said and I think it’s quite true as each time she has purging, her pee would smell foul too.

I brought her to see our usual paed and he advised us not to prescribe any medication to stop the purging.  It’s best to purge out all the toxins in the body.  My pediatric nephrologist recommended Smectar (a stool thickener) but my paed wasn’t too keen to recommend it as it may cause high fever.  He gave Baby C a few sachets of Pedialyte and said that I have to feed them to Baby C to prevent dehydration.  The orange flavored oral rehydration salt that the MO prescribed earlier, well, Baby C hated the taste and puked.  Pedialyte is well tolerated by her as it is flavorless, except for a tinge of salty taste.

I was also advised to wash Baby C’s sore diaper area with saline and apply zinc dioxide cream on it.  Her labia looked like someone had applied red lipstick on them when she had diarrhea for 3 days.  She screamed each time I washed the area after she had pooed.  Poor baby, she has really been going through a lot of pain and torture lately.  I pray that by God’s grace she will be able to get out of her nightmare and will be able to outgrow her kidney reflux soonest possible.

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Homemade ‘Ang Koo’


These are ‘ang koo’ or ‘hoong koo’ that my mil learnt to make at her friend’s house last week. Don’t they look tempting and simply irresistable? If I wasn’t so concerned about my darn jelly belly, I could have polished off all of them, really I could. These are really tasty but darn fattening too.

According to my mil, all the ingredients used to make these ang koo are natural. The green color was from pandan leaves (screwpine leaves) and the purple color was from purple sweet potatoes. The skin of the ang koo were made from rice flour and sweet potatoes and the filling was all mung beans or green beans. I just love em!

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Pee Smelly No More

Baby C’s pee has not been smelling foul anymore for the past 3 days.  After so many foul smelling pee incidences, I can now see the trend quite clearly.  The foul smelling pee goes hand in hand with diarrhea / loose bowel movement.   Each time she purges more than 3 times a day for several days, her diaper area would turn red and sore.  Next comes the foul smelling pee.  As soon as the diarrhea is under control and the diaper area not sore anymore, her pee would also not smell foul anymore.  

I think what could have caused her to have frequent loose bowel was the cranberry juice that I had been feeding her.  I’ve since stopped feeding her with cranberry juice and have only been giving her freshly grated apple juice, grape juice and pear juice.   Cranberry juice is well known for preventing UTI but looks like it could be the culprit to Baby C having frequent UTIs coz her little tummy just can’t stomach the sour cranberry juice, thus causing her the diarrhea (I am just assuming). Sigh…. case of the devil and the deep blue sea…..  just praying hard that no more bacteria, WBC and RBC will be detected in her pee ever again, period.

Anyway, will be bringing Baby C’s pee to the hospital for another culture test tomorrow.

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Baby C’s First Major Fall

Baby C gave me a heart-stopping moment today when she fell backward and hit the back of her head on the cold hard terrazzo floor in the living room. She was crawling on the floor and then pulled herself up to a standing position by holding on to the sofa. Minutes later, she fell backwards and I heard a loud thud ‘phop’ on the floor. I felt as if my heart dropped and I had to scoop it back from the floor. She wailed her heart out and her cries sounded even more painful than the cries when our doctor poked her hands and legs to find a vein for the IV line or when the doctor jabbed her with the painful intra-muscular antibiotics jab. I quickly picked her up from the floor, massaged her head and prayed that everything would be ok. Minutes later, she puked… about 2 tablespoons of vomit. I think the vomiting was caused more by the phlegm that has been irritating her throat for the past 1 month and from the acute crying, than from a concussion. My mil quickly hurried to the scene and urged me to bring Baby C to the hospital. But my instinct just told me that she’s going to be fine and  what I needed to do was to monitor her.

Baby C stopped crying after about 5 minutes but was very whiny. I brought her upstairs to my room and nursed her to sleep. When I came downstairs, my mil again urged me to bring Baby C to the hospital. I told her that it wasn’t necessarily but she was still very worried and she called my hubby herself urging him to quickly come home! Hubby sped home from his shop and brought us to the A&E section of the hospital.  

In the hospital while waiting for my turn to see the MO, I walked pass the clinic of an ENT specialist and this young looking doctor walked out to greet me. I had no intention to see this ENT specialist but since there wasn’t any patient around, the doctor asked me what happened to Baby C.  He took a look at Baby C and told me that Baby C still looked alert and active and told me that there’s most likely nothing to worry about, albeit I have to be on my guard for 24 hours to see if there’s anymore vomiting or altered mental status.

When the MO examined Baby C, he said the same thing.
I was then given a piece of paper on the ‘Symptoms of Raised Intra-Cranial Pressure’ and was advised by the doctor to be on the alert for these symptoms . Here are the symptoms :

Headache
Vomitting
Blurring vision
Double vision
Altered mental status
Altered conscious level
Weakness of hands and legs
Slurring of speech
Fits

Since the accident at 3pm until now, Baby C appears normal, is as active as usual and drinking her milkie as usual. I hope she’s going to b A-ok and does not need to do a CT Scan.

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