Summer’s Hospital Adventure.

No, she didn’t actually have to go to the emergency room or anything drastic like that.  However, she did have to go to the hospital today for an upper endoscopy procedure.  That’s the one where they put the tube down your throat with a tiny camera on the end of it and look at your esophagus, stomach, and top part of your small bowel.  The part that freaked me out about it as a mommy was the fact that she had to be put under anesthesia to do the procedure.  That wasn’t something I was real excited about. 

Summer’s been having tummy troubles since last fall.  Every day she complains that her stomach hurts or she doesn’t feel good or she feels like she’s going to throw up.  Every day.  I’m seriously at my wit’s end over the whole thing by now.  She doesn’t want to go to school in the morning because she’s afraid she’s going to throw up in front of all the kids and be embarrassed.  I can’t really blame her for that!  Sometimes she’ll say she can feel vomit come up in her throat and then go back down, which makes me think she has some acid reflux going on.  I’ve taken her to her pediatrician 3 times and by the third time the doctor could see that I was really at the end of my rope with this thing, this not knowing what’s wrong with her and being totally helpless as a mother to help your kid when they’re sick. 

So we got referred to a pediatric gastroenterologist.  At that appointment, he said lots of kids have the complaint of “I don’t feel good,” but Summer was so specific in describing her stomach hurting and where it hurt and the feeling in her throat that he thought it warranted a closer look.  About a week and a half ago she had an ultrasound of her abdomen to make sure nothing bad was going on in there, and it was normal. 

Then Monday was the big day.  There I was trying to fend off an anxiety attack because I’m freaking out about the anesthesia thing, and I’m hiding it and trying to reassure Summer (who was scared to death) that she will be fine and she won’t feel a thing or remember it.  I’m such a hypocrite!  I was so proud of my daughter, though.  She was scared, but she did it anyway and she didn’t cry (like I thought she would) when they were wheeling her away from me and her daddy.  Shoot, I WANTED to cry myself, but I didn’t.  I had taken my camera so I could take photos of her and remind her later how brave she was by making a scrapbook page about the day.  You can tell she’s the daughter of a scrapbooker, because she was all, “Mom take a picture of my bracelet.” and “Mom, take a picture of my IV.”  Gotta love this kid.

Here’s my brave girl before she went to the procedure room.  She took her treasured favorite teddy bear with her for moral support. 

On her way to the procedure.

They do the procedure and then bring her back and I am immediately freaked the hell out because there is blood on her bed.  No blood when she left us, but now there’s blood!  Are you kidding me?  Right away the nurse says the IV fell out of her hand and they had to put a new one in her arm and that’s what the blood is.  Um, yeah, thanks for mentioning that cause I was just getting ready to ask!  The doctor asks me right off if Summer snores and I tell him yes.  He asks if she snores loud and I tell him yes.  Are there people out there who actually snore SOFTLY?  I haven’t actually met one yet!  Then just to get me more freaked out, the doctor tells us that Summer had very obstructed breathing during the procedure and had a bit of trouble a few times.  WHAT?!?  He says she needs to go the ENT doctor to see if there’s something getting in the way of her breathing normally such as her tonsils or adenoids or something else.  She’s never had any tonsil or throat infection trouble, so who knows but we’ll see what happens.  He says that obstructed breathing like that or sleep apnea like a lot of adults have could be causing her stomach to hurt and/or be causing her to have acid reflux because the abnormal breathing could be upsetting the pressure inside her stomach.  That when people have sleep apnea they quit breathing for seconds at a time and that affects all of your organs because they’re deprived of oxygen.  But in her case maybe she’s breathing not very well and then taking a big breath to compensate and that’s making the pressure change in her stomach and making it hurt or making acid come up out of it when it shouldn’t.  Oh lord, I never thought I’d be having this problem with my almost 8-year-old. 

The doctor says also that she could have a hiatal hernia, which isn’t really a good thing.  That’s where part of your stomach sticks up through the diaphragm where it doesn’t belong.  It isn’t really life threatening and lots of adults have it, but he said it wouldn’t be a good thing for her, maybe because she’s a child?  I don’t really know.  But he couldn’t tell for sure if it was her stomach pushing up through the diaphragm on its own or if it was being pushed up like that due to her having problems breathing during the procedure.  So we definitely need to see the ENT before we look any further into what’s causing her stomach troubles.  Our appointment is Monday, so hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of what’s going on with her.  It’s gotta totally suck to have your stomach hurt and feel like you’re going to throw up every single day.  Did I mention it’s EVERY DAY? This poor kid needs a break!

So is there anybody else out there who has had this kind of problem with their child?  I would love to hear about it!