Trip to Cincinnati

We finally took Sam to his long anticipated appointments with the doctors at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.  He underwent an extensive evaluation to see if they could determine the cause of his poor weight gain and problems with food intolerances.  It was a hard week for us and him to endure these procedures, but we are thankful to have the opportunity to get this level of care.

The main finding was an abnormally high number of eosinophils in Sam’s colon, which sometimes causes chronic abdominal pain.  The cause may be foods or may be an abnormal immune response to his normal intestinal flora.  We will keep him on his restricted diet and try a new medicine that helps reduce colon inflammation.  The doctor said often kids will eventually outgrow this condition.  We are still do not have a definitive diagnosis, but this is “a target to shoot at” as the doctor put it.  Sam’s symptoms go in cycles, so if he goes into a sick cycle again we can come back to this new GI doctor for another evaluation while he is having problems.

Sam about to rock his upper GI series.

It ended up taking 3 people to hold him down for an hour to get all the images needed.

 

We were so blessed to stay with Jason’s family in Cincinnati.  The boys had so much fun playing with their cousins.

 

We are relieved the week is over and pray that Sam will do well with his new medicine.  I always remind myself that God did not make mistakes when he made Sam, and he will use this to His glory.  Sam, like all of our children, belongs to the Lord!