Upper Endoscopy

So we've finally decided to go ahead and have an upper endoscopy done on Natalie. Her pediatrician, her GI nurse, and my lactation consultant all say that her pain has gone on long enough and it's time to try something else - it just stinks that the 'something else' means my baby girl has to be put under anesthesia.

But we've pretty much exhausted all other non-invasive options - I've changed my diet three times, we've changed Natalie's medicine twice, we've changed the way we feed and burp her and she still seems like she's in pain. Thankfully it's not a constant thing, but it definitely happens more than we feel it should.

Her appointment is next Thursday (the 28th) at 11am. We have to be there at 9am and the doctor said we'd probably be home around 2:00 or 2:30. The procedure itself only takes about 30 minutes, but they want to monitor her for a while afterwards to make sure she doesn't have any ill effects from the anesthesia.

The doctor is looking for signs of inflammation and/or irritation. If he sees any, he'll take a biopsy (the size of a pencil point) of the area. Among other things, the biopsy will reveal if this is an allergy problem. If the biopsy is clear, the doctor will likely change Natalie's medicine from Prilosec to Prevacid.

If the doctor doesn't find any signs of irritation, he'll probably take Natalie off Prilosec since she doesn't have the problem that Prilosec is supposed to fix. If this happens, I'm not sure what our next steps will be in terms of how to ease her pain. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

As nervous as I am, I feel at ease with where she's getting it done. Her GI doctor strictly works with children. So it's not like she's getting an endoscopy done at a clinic that mainly works with adults, but occasionally has a child or two come in. Nemours is kids-only and the staff there is mind-blowingly wonderful.

The nurse reassured me that the doctor has done endoscopies on babies younger than Natalie. (Unfortunately this is a problem that affects lots of babies) The hospital has its own pediatric OR, its own pediatric anesthesiologist, and its own pediatric GI nurses. Just knowing that makes me feel more at ease.

The biggest worry we have is how she'll handle the anesthesia. Even though I'm nervous about it, I feel at peace about our decision. God's got His hand in this. Of that I'm sure.

After Lee got his upper endoscopy, he was supremely loopy for a few hours afterwards. Loopy to the point where he was making race car noises as the nurse was wheeling him to our car. It was awesome. Unfortunately, Natalie is too young to make race car noises ... maybe she'll make her own loopy noises.