It all started as a very typical Friday. Theo and I got up for the day, got ourselves and Stryder ready, and then Theo left for work. Stryder and I hung out for a bit, played hard, and waited for Nana to come over to watch him, as she does every Friday.

Around 11:35 am, my mom calls out, “Brittney.” I called back, “Everything alright with Stryder,” She said, “I need you.” I came down the stairs from my office, and my mom was holding Stryder over the sink. He was puking.

The world stood still. My brain flashed me back to Archer. I stood there staring, wondering how this was happening. I cannot fully describe what I was experiencing, but for about 3 seconds, I thought I was watching Archer puke.

Finally, I came back to reality. (Needless to say, I was crying and panicking during this time). My mom proceeded to tell me that he had thrown up twice. I immediately called our pediatrician’s office to try to speak with a nurse, and then I called Theo.

I had to wait to hear back from the nurse, and Stryder seemed to be feeling a bit better. My mom and I talked about all the reasons this could have happened. We then decided to take Stryder for a walk to see if fresh air would help.

The fresh air was more for me than for anyone.

After our walk, I got to speak with the nurse while my mom was feeding Stryder. She started telling me all the things that we were told with Archer. Basically:

• Ensure one wet diaper every 8 hours
• Keeping down fluids when eating
• Talked through Enfalyte
• Discussed food challenge
• When to go to urgent care vs. ER

As I hung up the phone around 1 pm, my mom said he was puking again. He had puked a smaller amount, and then we went to clean him up a bit by the sink, and he started to puke more.

Again, something about the puking throws my brain and whole body back to Archer. I looked at my mom and said, “Should we go to the ER.” She said, “Yes,” so I called Theo and said, “We need to go to the ER.”

Now, I’m sobbing. The fear of taking Stryder to the Children’s Hospital ER over puking set in. This is the reason we took Archer to the ER, only to be admitted and six weeks later have him pass away.

We told some of our friends and family and allowed the word to spread to others for prayer. We needed prayers for peace just as much as we needed them for healing over Stryder.

I sobbed the whole way to the hospital. I remember looking over at Theo and saying, “This is the place where our son died.” (While he didn’t indeed die there, sometimes it feels like it – it’s where we found out he would die…).

Our sweet friend gave us a call while we were driving and prayed over us and Stryder. I looked at Theo, and he had a tear rolling down his cheek. That was the moment I knew he was also scared.

We walked into the ER, and (thankfully) everything was so different than it had been years ago. I stood in front of the admissions worker, trying to hold back tears, and she told me, ‘Everything would be okay.’ – She didn’t know my past, but she was trying to be comforting. I was still so fearful.

To make a long, boring story shorter, we did get checked in and into an ER room around 2 pm (ish). We told the staff what was happening, and they said things were looking good because his vitals were normal. However, we needed to help his tummy feel better, and they had concerns about his hydration, as he had not had a wet diaper in hours. They said they were going to prescribe him medication to help with the nausea and then do a food challenge.

A good challenge is getting 5ml of Enfalyte every 5 minutes until he has held down 2+ ounces of food. Once he did that, we would be able to go home. If he couldn’t succeed, we would most likely be admitted to stay overnight.

While we waited for the medicine to kick in, I went to the hospital cafeteria to get food before this food challenge. I had not eaten all day, and it was about 4:30 pm. Walking through the hospital, I noticed how different everything had been since our stay, and I remember being so thankful for that. However, it looked the same when I got to the cafeteria floor. It was the first time I felt like I had welled up with tears thinking back to the daily walk Theo and I would take to get lunch (to get a break from looking at the same four walls of our hospital room).

Finally, I did get back to our ER room, and we were ready to start the food challenge. Thankfully, he passed! He was able to keep everything down. The doctors believe that he had a viral infection that caused his tummy to be extremely upset.

During our time in the ER, Theo and I had fully accepted the fact that we may be admitted with Stryder. Something inside us entered ‘parent mode,’ where we were ready and willing to do anything for our son.

I remember calling my family right after we were discharged and telling them we got to go home. There was a feeling of relief walking out of those doors. This experience was SO different than when we had Archer.

Over the next few days, we watched Stryder very closely to ensure he was truly better. The next morning, Stryder woke up his complete self. He was smiling and laughing. It indeed was a miracle that he was better so quickly.

This was the most challenging day of my life outside Archer’s passing. I felt like I had experienced full PTSD and so much adrenaline that I was emotionally and physically exhausted for days. Honestly, I still feel like I am recovering from this.

It’s so easy to think that because Archer is gone, so are the hard medical days. That’s not the case. I genuinely believe that I have some level of PTSD from the trauma around Archer’s passing. It will always be challenging to watch my children throw up; it will be scary when we have to go to the ER. Grief and trauma can do this to a person.

I’m not equipped for any of this. However, I’m thankful to believe in a God who does bring me peace and strength that I just cannot put into words.