Eight Days in the Hospital!

When we went to the pediatrician for Mila's 6 month checkup, we very loudly voiced our concerns about her eating habits. Since said pediatrician was going on vacation for several weeks, he agreed to see us again in two days, and if her weight had changed, he would admit her.

Eight days in the hospital. Holy cow. And what was accomplished was NOT what I wanted. First came the swallow study. Mila sat in a chair in front of an XRAY machine set up to video flouroscopy. I then fed her liquids of varying thicknesses - thin, nectar, and honey. The technician stopped us after just a few sips of " thin ", saying it wasn't safe. Apparently, she gets very close to aspiriating, with laryngeal penetrations, and sinus pooling. Um. Ick. She did better on nectar consistancy, but did start to have laryngeal penetrations as she got tired. The honey consistancy was so thick that she was gulping air. She did just fine on solids, thank goodness!

After the swallow study, she had a PH probe done. What a waste of our time! They put the probe in at 10am, and at 4ish, the probe malfunctioned. It was 6:30 by the time they were able to replace the probe ( which, by the way, involves greasing a tube, placing it in the nose, and sliding it down the throat... then you wait for the baby to gag, and push it farther down, into the stomach. Next, you take an xray to make sure its in the stomach and not in the lungs ). They removed it at about 10am the next morning. Except that they only got 16 hours of usable test. And she was SLEEPING FOR MOST OF IT. We already KNOW that she's not refluxing at night! The few hours during the day did show reflux, but because it was only a few hours here and there, they labeled the test as " normal ". What a crock!

The next day, she had an endoscopy. I can't tell you anything other than the next time anyone takes my daughter and sedates her, I will be giving them VERY CLEAR AND LOUD instructions as to what she is and IS NOT allowed to have. NO WHERE did I authorize them to FEED HER. Especially UNTHICKENED SUGAR WATER WHILE LYING FLAT ON HER BACK, HALF UNCONCIOUS FROM SEDATION. I don't know WTF they were thinking, or where they got the idea that this was allowed, but in no way, shape or form did I find this acceptable. The endoscopy, btw, twas " normal " as well, but we are waiting on the biopsies to rule out eosophilic esophagitus. I am sure that I mangled that.

EE is a allergic condition of the esophegus, which closely mimics that of reflux. However, sometimes it can only be diagnosed by esophegial biopsy, showing esonophils in the lining of the esophegus. The treatment is substantially differant from that of AR, and therefore, it is an important test. Mila already is on a hypo allergenic formula, but it does contain broken down proteins. This could explain why she briefly did better on the nutramigen and then got worse. It tends to go hand in hand with dysphagia ( swallowing difficulty ).

Oh, and did I mention she was drinking 24+ ounces a day in the hospital? Little poo head. Of course, yesterday she only had 16 ounces, true to form.

I am also concerned about a condition called delayed gastric emptying. While in the hospital, we kept Mila off all solids. We added solids back, and her intake went way down. DGE is much worse with solid food than liquid. It also goes hand in hand with... dysphagia and EE. The reason I am concerned with DGE is that a ) Zantac wouldn't do a darned thing for it b) Mila can puke solids literally HOURS after eating, when technically her tum would be empty c) Mila is missing most hunger cues, and can/will go HOURS on just a few ounces.

So there. Thats where I've been for the last 8 days.

And I learned to do shirring on my sewing machine. HOW COOL!