Abigail's Scope

After an hour in recovery without us by her side, the aid of oxygen, and a little girl who did not want to wake up we got a sigh of relief. They gave Abigail, a new anesthesia (Propofol); to help with the nausea, and it knocked her out. She was fine, just a little sleeper than normal. Recovery usually takes about 20 minutes before we get to see her, so having to wait an hour was quite nerve-racking. Though, I would gladly wait an hour in order to prevent the vomiting that occurred last time. The medication worked and next time we will be prepared to wait longer before we see her. ;) Dr. Putnum said that her esophagus looked really good, and hopefully we will begin a food trial soon. We should have her pathology report next week. If her scope is clear and she begins a food trial then she will be scoped sometime in September.

Ross' Scope

Ross' scope went well. The doc said that he has scarring which may not ever go away, but visually there were some subtle improvements. We are all hoping and praying for clear pathology results. We will not know any real results until those pathology reports come in, but for now he can begin a beef trial. He will continue the formula diet as well until he has a well-rounded diet; this will take some time to develop. If his scope is indeed clean then he can continue the beef trial and add a new food about every 3-4 weeks; tracking his symptoms. He will do this until he has four foods and then will be re-scoped.

Day 3...Allergy Results and a Fever

And the whelps begin. If you look closely you will be able to see the whelps form from his skin prick testing.




Here is a list of foods that Ross has tested positive for: milk, wheat, peanut, soy, apple, banana, blueberry, cantaloupe, coconut, lemon, orange, strawberry, watermelon, barley, corn, oat, rice, rye, sesame, sunflower, all tree nuts, all fish, all seafood, green bean, broccoli, carrot, celery, lettuce, onion, pea, tomato, molds, ragweed, grass, trees, weeds, mites, cockroach, and cat. Basically, he is going to be a meat and potatoes kind of guy. It could always be worse. We will have to wait to see what his scopes show tomorrow before the doctors will be able to make a plan of action for his treatment. Poor guy is doing his prep for his upper and lower endoscopy that he will have at 8:00 in the morning. As soon as we have results, we will let everyone know.

Wow! Abigail has grown up so much from the last time we were in this allergy waiting room. What happened to my little baby? She is really beginning to turn into a little girl.


Now for the fever part...Abigail started running a temp. of 101.2 degrees. We are assuming that she has picked up a virus from spending the past three days in and out of doctor's offices. We are praying that she doesn't have the flu! The hospital has a strict visitation policy in place during flu season where children under 12 aren't allowed to visit and all of the "community toys" are locked away, but she still managed to pick up something. I guess we should feel fortunate that this is the first time that she has gotten sick from one of our many visits to the doctor.

Snow, GI Visit, and a Little Fun

Ross' appointment with the GI went well today. Dr. Kushner was very nice and more importantly, he was well educated in EE. He asked a lot of questions about Ross' previous history and prepared us for the scope on Thursday. Tomorrow's appointment with the allergist will be more eventful I'm sure. That appointment will be at 11:30 am.

On another note, it snowed here a little today. Unlike Arkansas, they know how to treat and scrap the roads here. However, if you ask people that live here, they say they don't know what they are doing...obviously they haven't been to Arkansas when it snows! :)

We have been able to have some fun while we were here this time. We went to dinner with our friends that we met the first trip we came to Cincinnati. Poor Conner wanted to get down and play like any normal 18 month old, so he ended up with Grandpa for a while. Next time Conner, we will have to go somewhere that will allow you and Abbz to run around and play! Thanks guys for working us into your busy schedule and for a wonderful dinner.

Monday, Dec. 14, 2008

Our sweet baby had her 7th scope on Monday. Abigail did very well, and Dr. Putnum said that her esophagus looked normal. He also said that when they look that good most of the time the results come back clean. That is what we have been praying for. If that is the case, it will be her first clean scope she has had since she was diagnosed a year ago. We will hopefully have the results before we head back home on Friday. All in all today was a quiet day. Tomorrow, Ross has his consultation visit with the GI at 8 am.

Cicninnati Follow-Up

After much anticipation, we have our next trip to Cincinnati planned out. We will be leaving December 14th and returning December 19. Abigail will be scoped on Monday, and the rest of the week will be dedicated to finding out more about the severity of Ross' case of EE. He will have his consultaion with the GI on Tuesday, allergy tested on Wednesday, and scoped on Thursday. We sent Ross' initial pathology reports and slides to Cincinnati, and the results were more shocking than we had expected. His highest eosinophil count was 169 eos/hpf. Needless to say, we are anxious to hear what Cincy has to say about his treatment options!

Our Trip to Cincinnati

Our trip to Cincinnati was absolutely amazing! Other than the speeding ticket that we got on our way to have Abigail's patch testing read ;). Oh well, you win some you loose some. Back to our week in Cincy. On Monday, Abigail had her scope and amazingly her esophagus looked better than it ever has. However once we got the pathology results later in the week; they found eos still present. Dr. P. said that since the disease was still prevalent, he wanted to remove bananas (the one and only food) from her diet. Honestly, this was kind of a sigh of relief because we were terrified to introduce new foods. So long story short, she is drinking her Neocate Jr. only, and she may have the original Dum Dum Sucker flavors, Pixy Stix,and Smarties in order to maintain her oral motor skills. On Tuesday Abigail had allergy skin prick testing and also patch testing. The prick testing was well....horrible! She sreamed and flailed her body; wanting desperately to scratch the whelps that popped up immediately. Her testing confirmed the following allergies: milk, casein, eggs, wheat, peas, peanut, tree nuts, corn, barley, rye, mustard and sunflower seeds. Luckily however, her patch tests all came back negative. Like I said previously we removed the bananas (even though she did not test positive) because she has never been scoped on formula only. The theory is that if she has no eos present on formula only then she has the allergic-type of EE, and if there are still eos present; then she has the non-allergic type. Of coarse we will be holding our breathe for the next three months as we wait to find out at our next scope which type of EE she has. Here's to hoping that it is the allergic-type! I say this because although it is difficult to treat, it is much easier to control than the non-allergic type. I think that should get everyone up-to-date with our progress. I have attatched some pictures from our trip below.


Daddy, Mommy, Abigial, and Patches the Bear before the EGD.



Mommy holding Abigail as they are putting Abigail to sleep.



Abigail playing in the Allergy waiting room.



Look closely and you can see the whelps!



Abigail's Patch Testing.

CIncinnati Here We Come...

Finally, I thought this day would never come! Tomorrow we will be leaving to take Abigail to the Cincinnati Center for Eosinophilic Disorders in Cincinnati, OH. I am looking forward to being further educated on this disease, getting answers to our many questions, and finding the best treatment options for Abigail. We will be gone August 9-16.

Since I last posted, Abigail had an MRI of her brain. Everything came back normal with no lesions or abnormalities. She also had an orthopedic appointment. Her doctor wants to give her lower extremeties a little more time to correct themselves; we have a follow-up in 6 months.

Now that you are caught up, I am looking forward to posting our results from Cincy soon!