Quint is now 6 months and we can start giving him baby food. Because Quint is on a special milk formula, the doctor advised us to visit a dietician. We were also still in contact with our dietician in the AMC hospital but found it useful to consult someone closer. February 7, we had an appointment with the dietician. She was not as up to date with Quint’s disease but wanted to try it. She called us a day later with her nutrition proposal, we could try baby rice with the milk formula and try apple or pear. Quint did not like the baby rice mix and the other treat did not go well either. In my heart I hoped that he would like the baby rice so he could switch to this instead of the bottle because drinking was still a disaster, I believe patience is of essence here. Quint had developed a thicker tummy we have to show this at our next doctor’s appointment.

February 19 my parents came on vacation. Exciting because my father still had not been in Dubai. Os had some days off so we could go do fun things together. The first day was spent quietly and the next day we went out to dinner with them. When we came home, Shiroma, with our Maid sat with Quint in the living room. Quint was a little restless so she took him with her. It was also time for the next feeding, but he did not want to drink, unfortunately this was quite common.

After the bottle, we put him back in bed but he was quite restless so we did not sleep as well. My mother found him to be very warm and suggested to take his temperature. I found it not too bad and wanted to wait because if he would have a fever than we had to go to the hospital and I was very afraid for that. But Quint remained restless so I had to take his temperature and indeed Quint had a fever so we gave him a paracetamol and Quint fell asleep.

In the morning Quint still had a fever and therefore we contacted our specialist Dr. Waseem and we could come to his clinic. There was blood taken and the results showed that there was an infection. Quint was immediately admitted to the pediatric ward in the American hospital. He immediately got an IV set up to administer his treatment of antibiotics. This would take at least 10 days. Also extra medication was given to get rid of the excess water in his stomach. Quint’s stomach had even grown more. (They call this ascites).

** Shirley **

 

What a bad luck. Just now my parents were on vacation, everything went wrong with Quint and we were in the hospital with him. 24 hours we were at Quint’s side. At home everything was and running as well thanks to my mother and thanks to our maid. Melissa went to school and in the afternoon she got all the attention from grandfather and grandmother.

Quint his fever subsided and came back, he drank terribly. She also had fluid administered through the IV and his abdomen became thicker and thicker. The pee medication has been stepped up 1x and 2x spironolactone in the afternoon plus a dose of lasix but ... the ascites did not want to go down. It was out of control. Our specialist hoped that with the pee-medication his stomach would decrease because otherwise he had to perform a puncture. He was not in favor of punctures because it can cause infection again but unfortunately ... 8 days later Quint became as round as a barrel... Quint was in a lot of pain and was moaning constantly. When the specialist came by that evening he had no other choice but to perform a punction to extract excess liquid from Quint. Afterwards Quint was feeling a lot better; now hope that he will not get other infections.

The specialist advised us to go back to Europe and have Quint evaluated by a liver transplant center. Once Quint was finished with his cure in the hospital and everything is stable, we could go traveling.