A light at the end of the tunnel???

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

True to her word the GI doctor got the ball rolling in a big way.  She didn't waste any time.  One of the first things she did was have me feed Christopher for her.  After all, she knew that somewhere at the heart of this problem was some kind of feeding issue.  She wasn't sure why he was having trouble keeping his feedings down, but after Christopher showed her his projectile vomiting trick over and over again, she knew something had to be wrong.  Now she was speaking my language!

Next she ordered some GI tests, lots of tests.  You name it, he had it.  They did blood work, ultrasounds, CT scans, x-rays, and a test called an Upper GI.  In layman's terms an upper GI is a test where you feed the patient a dye that show us up on a special type of x-ray machine.  The goal of this test is to see how well and how fast this dye moves through the digestive track.  It is a fairly standard and common test that can give the doctor clues to possible blockages or problems with transit time or movement through the GI track.

Did he pass the tests?  The blood work showed that the potassium level in his blood was still too high.  Apparently, his kidneys hadn't "grown up" yet.  The ultra sound, CT scan, and x-rays showed nothing.  There were no obvious malformations or blockages.

The Upper GI did offer some valuable clues.  It showed that his swallowing mechanism was working, and that the food moved through the esophagus to the stomach at a normal rate.  The only problem was that it was next to impossible for Christopher to keep the dye down in his stomach since he kept vomiting it all over the exam room.  This made diagnosing the transit time through the rest of his GI track next to impossible. 

What did all this mean?  How do we fix it?  The GI doctor explained to us that Christopher was suffering from a disorder called severe Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD).  Her recommendation was to put Christopher on a medication that would help to stop the muscle between his esophagus and stomach from constantly opening up and allowing the food to be forcefully expelled through the mouth.  She also told us that she was going to give him more sodium through his IV to counteract the problem Christopher was having with his kidneys.  She ordered a consult with the kidney doctor until this problem was resolved.

What?  You mean it's not the flu?  Who knew?  All kidding aside, we were absolutely filled with relief that this doctor was on the case.  Finally, we had a diagnosis and a plan to combat it.  The doctor put her orders in motion, and we breathed a huge sigh of relief. 

Thoughts of going home to a normal life began to percolate through my mind.  Could it really be true that we had a diagnosis and a cure?  I was sure that we did.  We are NOT going to be "regulars" here after all.


If you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can pray like this:

More tomorrow...