Big C's first visit to CHEO

We had our visit at CHEO today. The doctor was great! She was really knowledgeable and I felt like she was on top of everything. Big C even had to wear a tiny little hospital gown-good thing the diaper covered his little bottom!

The doctor felt that there is no question that Big C is still suffering from acid reflux. She completely disagreed with the advice of our GP to take him off of his medication. At her recommendation, he is starting back on his old medication tonight and will stay on it until we can get a prescription for a new drug filled. The new drug is supposed to be taken mashed up in applesauce. Since Big C won't eat anything, they are having to create a liquid suspension of Prevacid for him. That is going to take a couple of days.

Big C is displaying classic reflux behaviour by not eating. We are to continue to encourage him to be at the table and take food and hopefully he will start to swallow some of it.She has referred us to see the Occupational Therapist at CHEO. This will help him to unlearn some behaviours that he has picked up. Currently he is used to taking food, chewing it, and then spitting it out. The OT should help us to help him with that.

He will be receiving a barium swallow test. He has to swallow this stuff and then they will take a look at what it does. In this test the barium will have to go all through his intestines.She is worried that there may be damage in his oesophagus from his reflux.

She is also worried that he may have something else going on alongside the reflux. To take a look at this, she wants to do an upper endoscopy and biopsies. This is a scope that will go all the way down into his system under general anaesthesia. Luckily for us, they are closing for Christmas and can't get it done in time. If he starts to eat after a month of being on the Prevacid, he won't have to get the scope. If he doesn't-he is getting the scope. We would prefer not to have to have the scope performed if possible.

Please pray that the Prevacid works and that Big C starts to eat so that we don't have to go down that road.They took some blood today to see how he is doing in general. They want to check everything from his iron levels to his nutrients.It was a long day, but I really feel that he is in good hands. Thank you so much for all of your support.

Background on Big C's Reflux Issues

Big C was 10 pounds 4 ounces at birth. At 8 weeks I figured out that his total misery was being caused by acid reflux. I brought him to the local clinic and the doctor there prescribed Zantac. I also stopped eating all dairy.

Our GP never believed me that Big C had reflux and I had to continue go to another doctor to get the medication prescribed. Our GP continued to encourage us to try to take Big C off of his medication. Around 7 1/2 we took Big C off of his medication.

When he was 6 months old we introduced solid foods. He hated them. Really, really hated them. You can see the pictures of that unhappy event at the side of this post. We have tried since then to get him to eat but he seems to be unable to eat. His tongue pushes food back out of his mouth and if any food does get in, he vomits.

Now at 10 months old he is only 19 pounds, not even double his birth weight. We went to the GP last week and he made a referral on Friday for us to see a GI specialist at CHEO. What should have taken a couple of months is taking a matter of days-they are worried about our little guy.