An Upper GI Exam
Greetings and hello to everyone.
Late in the afternoon yesterday Children's Hospital and Rebecca finally got connected on the upper GI exam appointment. Rebecca chose the 8:30 AM time slot this morning. Partly, this was driven by the fact Xavier has become stubborn about eating; he is not taking in the amounts he needs. This problem seemed to exasperate itself after visiting the doctor last week (the one who referred us to the radiology center at Children's). Yesterday's attempts to get Xavier to take his full daily amount reached a new limit of frustration as he clam-mouthed and repudiated the bottle with new resolve.
So, 04:00 this morning was his last bottle for a while (he had to fast at least four hours prior to the exam). He drank about 3.5 ounces, leaving one ounce behind. As 08:30 neared, he demonstrated a ravenous hunger setting in. Hopefully, this would encourage him to drink freely of the barium bottle as he lay under the fluoroscope.
That plan was a pipe dream! Three people held him in place while the doctor managed the scope. A four foot, maybe 5 inch nurse held Xavier's feet while a technician worked with Xavier's head and administered the bottle. Rebecca helped hold Xavier's arms out of the way, while I stood to the side with the doctor and discussed the images flashing onto the monitor. All of us except Xavier were dressed in lead-lined gowns; we even wore lead-lined gator-like neck pieces.
His first few minutes under the scope he fought and screamed and grew upset. It's been some time since we have seen him so angry. He managed to swallow a very small drop of barium. It stayed in his mouth for some time, but his fussing let this tiny drop eventually slide down his throat. It was nothing more than a simple test to tell us the fluoroscope was working. After several minutes of struggling, we took a break and Mom held him for a while. He calmed down a bit, enough to go for round two.
Much calmer this time, he drank a sufficient amount of the barium. As he swallowed more and more, the technician and nurse turned Xavier onto his left side, then his right, then onto his back, or some combination of these so the doctor could get good films of the barium moving through his esophagus, stomach, duodenum and upper intestinal tract.
The barium trace moved through his tract as expected; everything looked normal and healthy. It was nice to have the doctor there to interpret the exam results as they were collected. Still, we are waiting to hear the final analysis. The doctor went away to study the films on a higher resolution monitor and dictate his notes. He will send them to Dr. Abbey and we should learn the full results tomorrow. The doctor said he saw nothing abnormal, and he expected not to find anything upon closer review.
We shook hands with the technician and doctor, changed Xavier out of his little hospital gown and back into his street clothes, then followed the nurse back to the waiting room. Xavier was not coy about taking his bottle then!
Waiting for a nurse to take us back to the exam room, Dad and Xavier play with one of the toys in the dressing room.
The smallest gown they had, and still it was too big! The pants alone nearly came up to his arm pits. It's a typical hospital gown, open in back with string ties to hold it closed. The purpose of the gown, we were told, was in case he spit up his barium.