test #1

today was test #1 of 2 for the dude.  the upper gi series.

i was pretty worried about how well today was going to go.  first up, not letting the dude eat anything after he ate lunch (11am or so).  all he could drink was water.  i had to pick him up at 1, so i was hoping he would nap for most of the time and he wouldn't have to think about eating.  yeah, no luck!  he fell asleep at school at 940 and woke up around 11.  so when i got there at 1 (while all the other kids were sleeping), graham was laying on his back playing with ms. patricia.  he looked so happy and i hated the thought of taking him away from this and subjecting him to the hospital, barium and xray machine.  i reminded myself....this is necessary.

so off we went.  we arrived at the hospital and got right into registration.  'okay ma'am, all i'm going to need now is your orders for the upper gi.'  D'OH!  yeah, it was at home in my purse because the night before i had transferred everything from my purse to my diaper bag since i knew i didn't want to be left ill prepared for any of the dude's surprises!  luckily the pulmonologist office is literally right across the street from the hospital and a nurse was kind enough to fax over an order for the test.  yeah..not feeling so great about this whole thing since our day just seems to be off.

we only had to wait in the waiting room for about 10 minutes and got brought back to a pediatric xray room...the same one we were in back in august!!  the dude was VERY interested in the IV pole and wanted to push it around everywhere.  the doctor arrived 10 minutes later and was ready to start.  no turning back now!!

the nurse had mixed a bottle for graham, half and half with milk and barium.  i was worried the dude wasn't going to drink from the bottle since he hasn't in so long, and also because of the taste of the barium.  NOPE!  i think he was so thirsty and hungry he would've eaten anything at that point.  we laid him down on the xray table, laid him on his side and on his back while the doctor watched the path of the barium through the screen.  i had to hold graham's shoulders and squeeze the bottle for an even flow, so it was cool to watch the screen and see exactly how the dude was digesting everything.

RESULTS:

everything looked as it should be.  the only thing the doctor noticed was slight reflux, which could be contributing to the dude's wheezing and coughing, but it wasn't significant enough that it would be the sole cause.

NEXT STEPS:

the hospital will send the results to the pulmonologist and we'll go over them when we go to our next check-up on february 3rd.  we also have one more test to get done before then, the sweat test.  that one will be on january 10th in the morning.  the results for that should be pretty quick as well, so we'll definitely keep everyone posted.

THANK YOU...

for everyone's thoughts and well wishes.  they really do help us stay positive through everything.  luckily there are no needles involved in any of these tests, so it makes things much easier!

we <3 all of you!

the word on the street is....

pulmonology!

yup, we had our first pulmonologist appointment today and everything went great.  the dude still wasn't sounding great, so we were happy the doctor got to see him in action.  the first thing they did when we got there was listen to his chest, give him a duo neb (mixture of two medicines, but i forgot which two!) and then come back and listen to him again.  the medicine definitely helped, but it didn't clear much up.  he still sounded pretty snarfely in there.  

after the neb we sat and talked with the doctor for awhile to give her the history of our dude and his breathing trials and tribulations (i won't go into that again since it's all documented in this here blog!).  what was strange to think about though, was the fact that this has been going on since he was about 5 months old.  that's EIGHT MONTHS we've been dealing with this!!!  the sad part, it's kind of become a normal for us now.  i remember being so worried about doing nebulizers, will he stop breathing at night, etc.  and now we're pros at this!  i honestly think if we've gotten through all of this so far, i'm not sure what we can't get through!

  i think everyone was in agreement though that the alubuterol (fast acting attack medicine) wasn't really helping, that maybe we need to try something new.  we should still keep giving him the pulmacort (inhaled steroid) though since it does prevent the episodes from being horrible.  soooooooooooo....we are now going to start giving the dude singulair which helps treat allergies and asthma.  we're all crossing our fingers that this new medicine will help!

finally, in order to rule things out so we can figure out what's causing all the dude's breathing troubles, the doctor has asked us to get two tests done.

1 - an upper gi series: a radiological test used to visualize the structures of the upper digestive system (the esophagus, stomach and duodenum).  for the dude, they'll actually be looking at the trachea and seeing if anything is pressing up against or blocking it.  which could be causing him to not breath as he should be.

2 - sweat test: this test measures the amount of salt chemicals (sodium and chloride) in sweat and is used to diagnose cystic fibrosis (CF).  during my pregnancy the CF test came back negative, but again, just to rule everything out we're going to have this test done.  the doctor reassured us that she really doesn't think the dude has CF because most patients diagnosed don't gain weight as well as....ahem...well, as well as the dude seems to be gaining weight!!  25 1/2 pounds currently!!!  

so those are the updates.  we're going to try and schedule the tests as soon as we can, so that i don't have to stress myself out about waiting for the results.  we'll also be going back to the doctors office next wednesday for a follow-up.  until then!