Another sleepless night...

It's hard to be enthusiastic about blogging when you haven't had a good night's sleep in days.  I don't have to tell parents about this.  You develop a second sense--hypersensitive hearing--that wakes you whenever you hear a certain kind of noise.  For parents, this might be a baby's cry or cough.  For us, it is the sound of Hobbes gagging.  I can sleep through phones, motorcycles, thunder, pretty much anything.  But the second Hobbes hacks, I am awake.  It must be the maternal/paternal instincts in Tom and myself; we are driven to protect Hobbes.

Not that we can do anything to prevent or stop these episodes.  Esophogeal fluid builds up in Hobbes pockets, or his acid reflux kicks in.  I don't think I have mentioned this before (forgive me if I have), but along with his esophagus not working, the sphincter that connects the esophagus with the stomach also appears not to work.  So, when he lies down, stomach acid flows back up, and sometimes out.  That's why he is on pepcid, among other medications, to reduce the acid and help protect his esophagus. 

These episodes occur either around 12:30 or 3 a.m.--almost never during the day, because Hobbes is up and relatively active.  When they do occur, he makes sounds like he is trying to clear his throat, which in a manner he is.  Then he may or may not offer up a puddle of slimey stuff.  We cheer him on--go Hobbes!  Spit it up!  Because when he does, he is fine, and we can clean it up and go back to sleep.  We may lie awake watching him for half an hour at a time, multiple times during that night.  And, it usually takes two or three nights for Hobbes to finally surrender his bodily fluids.

Poor little guy.  He doesn't like this any more than we do.  He looks up at us--asking forgiveness and begging us to make it stop.  Of course we don't blame him--we never could.  And we wish we could make it stop, but nothing really can.  All we can do is squeegee the mess up and go back to sleep.