Testing as an Inpatient

The past 48 hours have been busy since I last posted. The "clean out" procedures for his colonoscopy didn't go very well since Bryce refused to drink the laxative that was to get the process started. The doctor finally decided to admit Bryce to the hospital Sunday evening which was the beginning of our inpatient stay that didn't end until about 48 hours later.

The "clean out" involved starting an IV to ensure he stayed hydrated and a NG tub through his nose to his stomach to give him the "easy going" liquid. Bryce was pretty miserable and tired once all of this was hooked up and fell asleep about 11 PM in the hospital bed with me. About every 2 hours, he would wake up screaming, go the bathroom (I'll spare you the details), we'd clean all of us up and then he'd fall back to sleep for another 2 hours. By morning, he was certainly clean.

Monday morning we met the GI doc and his nurse for our initial visit. He took a history and talked about the week's events. Then, Monday afternoon, Bryce was put under general anesthesia for the first time to undergo the endoscopy and colonoscopy. Visually, the GI tract looked good but we won't have the biopsy results until Thursday.

Just when we thought we were going to be discharged, it was decided just before the scopes to keep Bryce as an inpatient for another 24 hours to do an impedance probe test. The impedance test is the same one we did in April and it was decided to redo it since Cinci does thousands of these so they have the expertise to interpret the results. This test will show us how often Bryce is refluxing. The probe was inserted into Bryce's esophagus while Bryce was asleep during the scopes and he kept it in until this afternoon (about 24 hours).

Bryce continued this morning with the previously scheduled Allergy Testing even with the impedance probe in place. The visit this morning consisted of an initial appointment with the allergist, skin testing and placed the patches on his back for the patch testing. Poor baby had 18 pricks on each of his arms to find out if he had anaphylactic reaction to a food. As suspected, it all came back negative. The patch testing will be read on Friday morning; it looks for a delayed reaction to food.

The staff at Cinci Children's have been outstanding. It's a beautiful, state-of-the-art facility with staff that truly care. It's wonderful to be in a place geared for children! Andy's parents were here through our inpatient stay which made things so much easier! We also saw my sisters on Sunday before Bryce had to go into the hospital.

The next few days should be a lot less intense with just follow up visits. Thankful, the testing is done!!! I'll post more when I can. Love to you all.