Vindication....

Sweet Vindication!! That's what I'm feeling right now!

We had the swallow-test today. Whit had to drink a bottle of barium, and they strapped her to a board and watched the barium as it emptied through her system. I didn't go to the test...Brett took Whit alone. I needed to stay with the other kids...and didn't think I could bear to watch her go through that. She refluxed terribly, and Brett could tell there was something wrong. The radiologist asked him to bring her back again in a few hours so they could take more pictures as it was emptying out of her system. When he went back, he could see that it was barely leaking out into her intestines. After probing the radiologist, he told Brett there was a problem.

The doctor got the results from the radiologist and called us later that night. Whit not only has a REALLY bad case of reflux, but she ALSO has a mal-rotation of the muscle between her stomach and her intestines (I can't remember the name of it)--meaning it's completely twisted and very little can get through.

Here's the funny (well, not really funny...actually infuriating) part: This is the EXACT thing I asked the doctor about over a month ago! I had researched and researched all of Whit's symptoms and came up with 3 things that could be causing her so much pain and stunted growth 1) a hiatal hernia, 2) a stricture (blockage) of some sort, and 3) an emptying problem with her stomach. I went to the doctor with my theories and asked him if she could have any of these, and could we test for them P..L..E..A..S..E?! We were to the point of doing the tests when that darn speech pathologist got involved and convinced the doc that we WERE starving our baby. That's when any other diagnosis' were scraped and I was told that CPS (child protective service) "could" get involved. At that point, I said "see ya" (well, not quite that nice of words) to the pathologist--which angered the doctor and stopped all forward progress.

So basically, we think Whit has a BLOCKAGE which is causing an EMPTYING problem in her stomach. Because the muscle below her stomach is twisted, the milk stays in her stomach for an abnormally LONG period of time. When we force bottle after bottle down her (as the doctors demanded) to get her to gain weight, it gets stuck and therefore comes out the only place it can--up through her mouth as reflux--causing even more pain, and possibly leading to a hole in her esophagus. If the doctors would have listened to me a month ago, we would have figured all this out by now and Whit wouldn't be hurting anymore. To say that I am angry is a HUGE understatement!

When Brett asked the doctor if all of this could cause her not to grow he simply said, "possibly". Possibly!? Are you kidding me?? Funny....he asked the radiologist the same thing right after the test and got a resounding "Yes!"

Apparently it is a big deal because they want us at Primary Children's like yesterday! They said if we would have been able to have the test done on Thursday, we would be at Primary Children's having surgery on Friday. But now, because it's the weekend (and a long weekend at that), we have to wait until Tuesday to go down for more tests and then surgery.

It's a little freakish knowing that our little 6 pounder is going to have surgery in a few days, but knowing it needs to be done is half the battle. I feel like we've been through war with the doctors. Surgery can't be any worse than what we've already been through to get to this point. And honestly, it feels good just to have some answers!