Appoinment with the GI

The highly anticipated doctor's appointment was this morning! After Addison's one-year check up, her pediatrician wanted to refer Addison to a pediatric GI (gastroenterology) at Cook Children's. For those of you who don't see pediatric specialists like my kids do, this is a fancy doctor who knows all about poop. Just kidding. Dr. Ogunmala knows much, much more than just poop. In all seriousness, Dr. Ogunmala asked and took down an extensive background on Addison. He then said there are pretty much three reasons why a child isn't gaining weight: 1. not enough calories, 2. enough calories, but essential nutrients are being lost through bowel movements, or 3. enough calories, the food is being broken down properly, but the body isn't disbursing the nutrients -- it doesn't know what to do with it all. He then said the only real way to figure out what is going on with Addison is to run tests.

Now I knew this was coming. I knew the GI would want to run more tests. But I didn't know it would be to this extent! Dr. Ogunmala wants an MRI done. He explained that Addison would be under anesthesia. And then said while she's under that he would also collect some biopsies of her esophagus and stomach. And they would also test for reflux. Now this is a fun test: the test for reflux is some kind of probe that they insert into Addison's mouth and down her throat to measure how often she refluxes. For a 24 hour period. Nice, huh? I asked the nurse today how you handle a child with a probe down their throat and she brushed me off and said "they" would go over that with me when the time comes. Can't wait to hear what "they" have to tell me! In the meantime, I also have an appointment for a sweat test. Not sure what exactly this will tell the doc, but it's been ordered. And since the sweat test will be at the lab, I can go ahead and drop off her stool and urine samples while I'm there. Yup. Fun times ahead for me. And have I mentioned getting to see a dietitian AND an allergist?

So this is my silver lining -- I love my child. I love her enough to entertain all these tests in the hope that one will shed some light on why Addison hasn't gained any weight in seven months. Seriously. She was 15 lbs 11 ounces at 6 months and today she was 17 pounds. Ok. She's gained one pound in six months. No matter how I feel about all the tests, not gaining weight for six months isn't right. In closing, I'll keep blogging about all this. It's therapeutic for me and cheaper than a shrink.