A day at Children's Hospital

Rhys has had reflux his whole life.  We put him on meds for it at about six months.  These days he's also, consistently, constipated.  We've doubled his prevacid to twice a day.  He still throws up in his mouth.  We've taken him in to the specialists at Children's, and they are running a battery of tests.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon there so he could get scoped through the esophagus, stomach and lower intestine, with biopsies taken along the way.

We arrived early, happily, as they called as we were getting signed in to let us know they could start two hours early if we could get there.  Rhys saw his best friend Trace in the lobby as Trace was leaving.  That made for two very happy little boys.

We got Rhys signed in and barely had to wait before we were taken back to the waiting room.  We had brought him his iPad so he just played games.  He didn't like the hospital clothes and he was afraid of the blood pressure cuff.  As we sat there he got scared but dug deep and found the courage to do what had to be done.

We were visited by the Dr, the anesthesiologist, her nurse, and two other nurses.  They finally sent in a lady to help Rhys understand what was happening.  She had a mask for him to try on and she showed him a bunch of pictures of another little boy who had a procedure.  He seemed better after that.

We walked back to the OR with him.  He had chosen strawberry for the flavor for his air.  They have a stick of "smell" that looks like chap stick.  They rub it around the inside of his mask.  He freaked when we got to the room but I was able to urge him forward and help him onto the bed.  He laid down and we held his iPad so he could keep playing while he fell asleep.

After that Tracy and I went and grabbed a bite to eat.  I hadn't eaten all day since he couldn't.  The food wasn't bad but we wolfed it down because the procedure was only supposed to take fifteen minutes.  Sure enough, a couple of minutes after we sat down in the waiting room, there was the Dr.

Rhys' pictures all looked good and normal.  No scarring and no damage visible.  We'll have to wait a week to find out the results of the biopsy.  This is good news but doesn't get us any closer to fixing his reflux issues.

We waited a few more minutes and they came to get us.  Rhys was doing fine, grumpy but tired.  Mostly he just slept until release.  His discharge nurse was the only unpleasant person we encountered there, so it was a double blessing to leave.

We told Rhys we would take him wherever he wanted to eat, since he hadn't gotten to eat anything since the night before.  He chose "the bean store", which is what he calls Las Delicias (Mexican) because that is where we get his favorite food, re-fried beans.  We had a nice little dinner, with Rhys eating guacamole and lamenting that he could not have salsa and hot sauce.

Following dinner we met Cousins at Target, as they had Owyn with them, and Rhys go a toy as a reward for being so good.

By the time we got home he was hungry again but we made him suck it up, as they had told us to make him take it easy.

Rhys was a trooper, as always, and made us very proud.  Now we'll just have to wait and see what the test results say, then on to the next step.