Cincinnati Medical Update Part I!

Our family is home safe and sound. The trip out to Cincinnati Ohio to receive a second opinion on Emmett's health, was very productive and Michael and I learned so much.

What an amazing hospital! The campus is ginormous, the level of care is phenomenal and the people are so kind (something to be said for the Midwest hospitality). I am so impressed how people went to out of their way to help us find our location or even the cafe.

After the 4 days of radiology, scopes in the operating room, clinic appointments, biopsies and more the Areodigestive group were able to present us with several solutions.

The physician's in the Areodigestive group treat the sickest of kids and most complicated of cases. They have been able to address and help many children's medical issues who come to them from all around the world.

Several blog posts back, I expressed how frustrating it was to watch Emmett retch(severe dry heave) several times an hour. He would have good day and he would have bad days. This has been on on going issue since the battery ingestion almost 2 years ago. We have tried several different medications to help releave the symptoms, but nothing seemed to do the trick.

Emmett has had a gastrostomy tube(g-tube) for the past 2 years. Emmett can not be fed by mouth due to the damage of the esophagus and the reoccuring strictures. A g-tube was placed to allow Emmett to receive adequate  nutrition. The image is a g-tube. 

In one of the scopes performed by the GI doctor in Cincinnati showed that Emmett has severe refluxing issues. Michael and I were sad to hear this because Emmett had a fudoplication last year, an aggressive surgery to help stop or prevent reflux. The tissue of Emmett's lower esophagus is extremely raw due to the refluxing all the acidic contents that the stomach contains. This also is one of the primary reason's for Emmett's retching episodes.

The GI doctor strongly suggested that Emmett have a gastrostomy-jejunostomy tube(gj tube) placed. See images below.

The feeding tube bypasses the stomach and is threaded into the small intestines called the jejunum.

Emmett had the GJ- tube placed on Wednesday and has NOT retched once! Amazing!

I will update hopefully tomorrow with more interesting discoveries we have learned from our trip to Cincinnati. Hooray for moving forward with Emmett's health.