This morning we took The Littlest Apple for his appointment with the new doctor, a pediatric gastric motility specialist.<\/p>\n
The Littlest Apple hasn’t gained ANY weight since his January appointment<\/a> (but he didn’t lose weight either, a small comfort).\u00c2\u00a0 He still weighs 21 pounds, but he is almost an inch taller now.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither of those things was a big surprise.\u00c2\u00a0 He didn’t seem heavier, but his pants have been getting a little shorter.<\/p>\n The new doctor, Dr. C, seems like he really knows his stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 There are a lot of unknowns and gray areas about gastroparesis<\/a>, but Dr. C seems to be very familiar with all of the testing and treatment options.\u00c2\u00a0 At the same time, he’s more than willing to admit that he doesn’t have answers to some of our questions, like “is this something The Littlest Apple can outgrow?” and “what caused this?”.\u00c2\u00a0 And I like that he’s taking ACTION.<\/p>\n Overall, I’m happy with how the appointment went.\u00c2\u00a0 Things are HAPPENING now, and that seems so much better than just drifting from one appointment to the next, watching, waiting, and wondering.<\/p>\n Here’s what we’re doing for now:<\/p>\n NG TUBE:\u00c2\u00a0 Obviously this is a huge one.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve been circling the drain of feeding tube options for over a year now.\u00c2\u00a0 The Littlest Apple is getting an NG tube<\/a> in the next few days.<\/strong> As soon as the home health care people can get out here to give us our instructions.\u00c2\u00a0 He’ll be using the tube only at night, for 12 hours while he sleeps.\u00c2\u00a0 The drip at night is the equivalent of about an ounce an hour, or 12 ounces total.\u00c2\u00a0 Given that he drinks about 16 ounces of Boost during the day, 12 ounces is A LOT for him.\u00c2\u00a0 But broken down over 12 hours, it doesn’t sound like too much.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll see how he handles this.<\/p>\n We have the option of keeping the tube in 24\/7 or learning to put it in and pull it out ourselves each night.\u00c2\u00a0 Both of those options have their pros and cons.\u00c2\u00a0 Keeping it in during the day will mean that he’s walking around with tube taped to his face all day.\u00c2\u00a0 More opportunities for it to get pulled out.\u00c2\u00a0 And I think that would be a big issue with his Mother’s Day Out program. (The Littlest Apple had an NG tube when he was in the NICU for the first 10 days of his life….he managed to pull it out TWICE then.\u00c2\u00a0 I can only imagine how his 2.5 year old self will handle that.)<\/p>\n Only using the tube at night takes care of those issues, but then The Picky Apple and I are left to insert a tube up through The Littlest Apple’s nose and down through his esophagus every single night<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a little terrifying to me.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s definitely going to take the two of us to hold him down to do that.\u00c2\u00a0 There are going to be some major tantrums, methinks.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe even mine.\u00c2\u00a0 But I think this is the option we’re going with so that he has a little more freedom in the daytime.<\/p>\n