It was another doctor visit day, I packed Brendan and took him to see the GI specialist. I can’t say that there is going to be a lot of change for now, this doctor is just going to manage his eating and functioning with his ostomy to help him grow.

With the major reflux episodes he has been having, the doctor decided to make a few changes. Instead of getting a bolus feeding 3x a day and then continuous overnight, we are going to move to 5-6 bolus feeds. So he will eat 90-100ml every 4hrs, on a 2 hr push. That is 2 on, 2 off around the clock. He thinks that the continuous 10hr feed overnight does not give his system enough time to rest and does not promote switching to the bottle to eat.

Some of the things they do for reflux include mixing in a little rice cereal in to the food to thicken it and help it stay down, but we can’t do that because we can not thicken food to put through the tube. The doctor is switching him from the Zantac to Prevacid because it is a bit stronger. The other thing we can do is keep him elevated especially when eating. I found a hold that seems to work to keep him fully upright and as long as someone held him, he had a really good evening. I put him back in the bouncy chair thinking that he would be sitting up enough but obviously he isn’t because toward the end of eating now, he has had 3 major refluxes. If I go back to holding him upright, he is OK.

The doctor ordered a special sling for bedtime to keep him at an angle to sleep. We are having trouble tracking one down so I might have to get out the sewing machine and improvise.

More on this later, typing with one hand and holding Brendan with the other arm doesn’t work.