Waiting and Waiting

We spent a lot of time in waiting rooms this week. Abby keeps getting urinary tract infections and this time it didn't go away with the antibiotic. When I took her in to the doctor on Tuesday she had to get an antibiotic shot! Poor thing. We will be making an appointment with a Urologist soon to try and figure out what is causing these recurring UTI's, as well as keep tabs on her kidney stone. Yes, Abby has a kidney stone. (How does a two-year-old get a kidney stone??) It was discovered during her hospital stay.

Abby was scheduled for 3 tests this week as well. The first was an Upper GI. This test allows us to watch what happens in her stomach after she swallows or gets formula through her feeding tube. Mostly we were looking for reflux and hoping that was the reason behind her daily vomiting. But there was no sign of reflux. So that makes us think it is due to her stomach emptying too slow.

The next test was a Modified Barium Swallow study. This one lets us see exactly where food or drink goes as she swallows - to make sure she is swallowing safely and not aspirating into her lungs. She showed improvement from her last study that was done in the hospital. We can now give her a much wider variety of solids - soft, moist things like soggy Cheerios, bananas, or bread. The list of possibilities is expanding and I am VERY excited about it. She is also safe to have thickened liquids in her sippy cup at home! Yay!

Today I took her in for the third test. This was the Gastric Emptying Study to see the rate at which her stomach was emptying. I was pretty sure we'd get some concrete results with this test and be able to start taking action to end the vomiting. But after we drove 30 minutes to the hospital and waited an hour to be seen, Abby couldn't have the test done. Grr... She had too much contrast material in her system from the other two tests this week and that would have made the results of this test inaccurate. I was pretty upset. The person in the RADIOLOGY SCHEDULING DEPARTMENT who scheduled all of these tests for me should have known that they couldn't be so close together. So now we have to wait another 2 weeks before we can go in for the emptying test again. I don't think I can handle another 2 weeks of vomiting. And neither can Abby. I really needed answers and solutions this week. So, again, Grrrr.....

But on a happier note, Abby's third birthday is this week. I made this video for her to watch and thought you all might enjoy it too.

For your viewing and listening pleasure...