Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The Good News

We have recieved in a very strange way, some great news this week. Charlotte had her Gastric Emptying study done last Friday, and we got her results back yesterday. She has delayed gastric emptying. Your stomach should empty completely in 2 hours, and in 1 hour, hers had only emptied 22%, therefore in 2 hours, she would only be emptying 44% give or take. So, this may be explaining a lot of our problems related to feeding.
  • Why she has no appetite
  • Her reflux throughout the day despite medication
  • Maybe she has nausea and doesn't feel well

So our next step is to give her a medication called Reglan 20 min. before each meal to see if it can increase the motility of her tummy and speed up the emptying process for her, hopefully making her feel more hungry and want to eat instead of us always forcing the issue. We can only hope that this may help us tremendously, but we have started the Reglan today.

In the mean time, there is still possibility that it may take a long time for us to take away her "negative association" with food, and this may not be the answer to her vomiting and gagging. So we still may have a major problem to overcome that. So, we are meeting with the surgeon that would place the feeding tube on Feb. 14th, in the event that things don't turn around like we hope and that we still need the tube. Regardless of whether or not we have to do it, the Gastric Emptying study gave us some valuable information, and even if she had the feeding tube, we would probably keep her on the Reglan provided she doesn't experience too many side-effects.

In a very twisted way, the GI Dr. and myself were very excited by this news because it may be an answer to the problem we have had for the last year +. I am hesitant to hang my hopes on this one thing, since it seems Charlotte's problems are multifactorial at this point, but I am hopeful... and am putting my faith in God that He is guiding us. Thank you so much for everyone's prayers. I believe that HE is listening to our cries for our precious daughter. We want her to be well and to thrive so much... and we need everyone's help. She is just so amazing, and such a loving, happy, beautiful girl. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Jenn

3 comments:

Sarah said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sarah said...

YAY! It's great to be happy about this! Now that you know the problem, you can help her and get her to eat and thrive again! I'm happy for you. She's beautiful.

Anonymous said...

Darling pics!!!
I am so glad you are getting some answers! I miss seeing her very much. Give her a big hug!