EGD Results Are Good

Today Maria had an esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD). They put her under general anesthesia and put an endoscope (a tube with a camera) down her throat to examine her esophagus, stomach, and small intestine. The procedure went fine and she tolerated the anesthesia well. The gastroenterologist said everything looked mostly normal, though he saw she had a very small hiatal hernia (basically the sphincter between the esophagus and the stomach didn't quite close all the way around the endoscope). He wasn't particularly concerned about that though. He took biopsies of several places to check for irritation from reflux that might be to mild to see. Cathy got a nice little report with vivid color pictures of the inside of Maria's stomach and small intestine.

So we took her home and she was, of course, starving. So I start to gavage her (put milk down the feeding tube) and Cathy leaves on an errand. It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds after Cathy left when Maria found a fun and exciting new way to dislodge the NG tube -- she puked it out! She let loose a torrent of milk like something out of The Exorcist, and when I looked I realized a loop of the NG tube about 4 inches long was dangling out of her mouth. That meant the tube now went into her nose, out her mouth, back into her mouth, and down her throat. So I pulled the tube out and we put it back in later in the day. It is not easy being Maria.

She goes back to the gastroenterologist in July and, among other things, they'll discuss the possibility she'll get a G-tube (a tube inserted through an incision in her stomach wall) rather than the NG tube. However, Cathy's started having good luck getting Maria to drink out of an open cup. We've given up on the bottle and Cathy was near to giving up on the sippy cup so we are glad that she seems to be doing well. We've tried an open cup before, but Maria was very passive. We'd pour the milk in her mouth and she might swallow or she might spit it out. Now she's much more involved and actually sucks the liquid out of the cup. It's a slow process but as she learns the new skills it should hopefully become faster. More important, if she can get consistent, we can take the dang feeding tube out.

Cathy's also had good luck using a sort of fruit slurry rather than just breast milk. It's thicker than fruit juice so there's no risk of aspiration, but we don't actually have to use the thickener that we still don't completely trust. Maria's pediatrician also said Cathy can start Maria on cow's milk. In fact, she wants her to start her now so that when Maria comes in for her one year checkup she can see if she's had any weird reactions to it. Of course, since Maria's a Greek girl, Cathy wants to try goat's milk as well, however there is apparently some heated debate about whether that's good for babies or not.

And speaking of Greeks, Manolis (Maria's father) has his final (we hope) interview on Thursday. He's already made flight plans for Friday, so he might be here Friday afternoon! We have our fingers crossed.