Endoscope

February 26 at 6:45 am Briggs had to have an endoscope done. He started not eating well AGAIN and so the GI doctor thought this was the right thing to do. We had to be there at 5:45 am to get registered and "pre-oped" for the procedure. He was examined by the nurse and anesthesiologist before the procedure. The OR nurse came and got us to take him back. I never thought twice about being back there while he was put to sleep. I wish I would have. That was one of the worst things that I have ever seen. I have seen many babies being out to sleep for surgery/procedures and did not think that it would effect me... I was WRONG!!! I will never do it again. He was not intubated (tube in his throat) but he did have a mask on and was breathing by "the bag". I guess it is a more difficult for me because I saw all the emergency stuff set up for the "just in case" cases. Most people probably don't know what all the instruments are that were out but I did and I think that made it even harder. Frankie was already in tears and so that did not help me. (You can see that in the picture below.) Dr. Dave wanted to rule out acid damage and allergies so while she was looking at all the structures she took several biopsies, one in the esophagus, stomach and small intestines. He was only under anesthesia for 15 minutes and woke up just fine. We were able to take him home with in an hour of the procedure. He did great the rest of the day with no complications!!

We had an appointment the following Tuesday to get the results of the biopsy. Dr. Dave told us she had not anticipated finding anything that she was more doing this to rule-out any other problems than to actually find something. She was wrong... Problem 1) His esophagus showed signs of acid damage. Fix 1) Switched his Nexium to Prevacid. They are the same type of drug and do the same thing but for some reason one works better than other on different people. Problem 2) His stomach and small intestines had eosinophils in them. She said that was not normal and that that probably meant he had an allergy to something he was eating. Fix 2) Stop feeding him all baby food except formula and see an allergist. She wanted us to feed him "fake food" (thanks Megan for the name) until we saw the allergist. "Fake food" is a hypoallergenic cereal type food. It was pretty disgusting but he did ok with it. I immediately made an appointment with hesitation because everything that I have heard and read states that infants do not have the same type of allergic responses so an allergy test would not give us any further answers.

The following day we had an appointment with the allergist, whose name I will not disclose because I was extremely not impressed and will NEVER go back there. She really had nothing new to tell us, she allergy tested him with the prick test and told us to follow-up with Dr. Dave to help us with the feeding recommendations. For all that do not know the prick test is awful for any one but especially for a 6 month old. He had to be held down for 15 minutes after being pricked alot with stuff that may make him itch or not. And while all this was going on we had Brooks there because Frankie wanted to hear what they had to say. The appointment took 2.5 hours and nothing to show for it.

We called Dr. Dave and made a plan. Our plan was to keep feeding the "fake food" for a week and then add one new food in every 2 weeks. So Sunday we started with rice cereal and will continue with this for 2 weeks before adding in another food. If he starts eating poorly again then we will know what food is bothering and we will know to stay away from that for awhile. For right now he is eating well and loving his rice cereal again!!

On a side note, he had had the stomach bug (he got it from me and we pray and hope that Brooks does not get it) for over a day now and is actually wanting to eat but continues to throw it up... It can only get better from here, RIGHT?!?!?