A week and a half ago we discovered that Levi had thrush. Now, I was aware of what thrush was but I had never before dealt with it because Caleb was able to make it through babyhood without ever coming down with this illness. Sadly, Levi was not so lucky. Last Tuesday Levi stopped nursing and just started screaming. This was my first look into the horribleness that is thrush. Thankfully, I discovered that he would take bottles, so I started the horrible routine of pumping and giving him bottles regularly throughout the day. Meanwhile, we treated the thrush with Gentian Violet, an alternative to antibiotics that turned his mouth purple (and subsequently his face as well because he would smear it everywhere): Unfortunately, despite our attempts the infection continued to spread. By Thursday afternoon Levi stopped eating completely. Thanks to my dr. sister, we were finally able to discover that we could get him to eat by shooting 1mL of milk into his mouth at a time with a syringe. What a beating this process was, but it helped us escape hospitalization for dehydration (just by a few hours).

Because of the thrush, we definitely had a few days of unpleasantness as my poor baby was in pain, without a full tummy, and with a purple face. (Unfortunately this coincided when Nana (Scott's mom) was visiting Levi for the first time.)

Here is a glimpse at some of the different happy faces that we typically see on our sweet boy.
If you look closely, you can see a dimple in Levi's right cheek. This is a great picture to show both of Levi's dimples! (I LOVE THEM!) And his great big grin.

Labels: Levi