The latest on the boy

Brad's latest update to the family:

Guess what? Mayo actually knew that we had an appointment today! In fact, we ended up having two different appointments!

Our first one was with Dr. Samar Ibrahim, who is in Pediatric Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Very nice woman, even if she was a little hard to understand. She'd actually read Jamie's file before she came in and was pretty familiar with everything that has taken place. She asked a bunch more questions about Jamie's eating habits and more family history details about potential stomach or digestive issues.

Nothing really seemed to jump out at her and made her go "AHA!", but she also didn't dismiss us saying that there is nothing wrong with him. Her thought was that they'll x-ray his stomach and run some blood tests to check his gastro functionality. After that, they want test his stomach ph levels, which involves spending the night in the hospital with a tube down his throat. However, they're also going to do a sleep study on him at the same time, so we'll kill two birds with one stone. Doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but we're happy that they're being very thorough in their evaluations.

After meeting with her, we went to our second appointment. This one was not anywhere close to fun. Not only did they want a urine sample and taped a plastic bag to his "stufff", but they also wanted blood samples. Let me just say...BLOOD DRAWS ON INFANTS SUCKS! He gets so mad and upset, and I can't say I blame him. Hurts enough for an adult to get one, I can't imagine what a baby feels.

Once the blood draw was over, we hung around the Clinic for a couple of hours waiting for Jamie to actually pee in the bag. For a kid that seems to pee every 5 minutes, he was certainly stubborn today! Although, once he went, he gave them more than enough of a sample. We went back to the lab to have them remove the bag and deal with the sample, and they told us that part of the initial blood draw clotted and they needed to do another. So, once again, he held him down and listened to him scream for a few minutes. However, this time they took more than enough so even if part of it clots it should be ok.

The upcoming order of events is as follows:

This Friday he has a stomach x-ray. We have to try to make him go a full FOUR HOURS between eating. Not sure how that's going to work, but it should be ok. He went a little over 4 hours today, so there's hope!

April 17th we see a pulmonary doc to make sure Jamie's lungs are working ok. After that, a follow up with the cardiologist to review the testing that's been done so far.

May 15th is the sleep study. Not sure exactly all the details on that one yet, but it sounds like we have to call the night before to find out when we need to be there, and then after that not really sure.

June 2nd is the follow up for the results of the sleep study.

After that, hopefully we'll have some answers and won't necessarily have any other appointments other than his normal checkups.

Last but not least, they weighed him and he's about 13lbs 6oz, which puts him in the 21st percentile. While that is "low", they are in no way concerned with his weight gain, size or development. He showed off a bit for the doctors today and they were very impressed considering he is only 4 months old. I think that's it for now. If I think of anything else, I'll send another update, or if you have any questions, just ask.

Love,
Brad, Jo, and the Stinkerbutt