Thursday, October 29, 2009

Pyloric Stenosis (PS)

About 5 days ago all 3 of the boys started having feeding problems. It's very common for them to spit up a couple of ml's during a feeding. Suddenly they started projectile vomiting 15-20 ml's. After 3 days with no improvement Dr. R decided to order ultrasounds on each one of their stomachs. After reviewing the ultrasound he decided to do additional testing including an upper GI screening with the radiologist in an attempt to confirm or deny what is called Pyloric Stenosis.

Pyloric Stenosis (PS) is where the muscle between your stomach and intestines isn't developed properly. This restricts or prevents food from passing into the intestines and instead forces it back up the way it came in.

Before the upper GI screening Dr. R also showed the ultrasound results to the surgeon and the radiologist. Together they determined that Grant and Alex had problems and that it was better to perform the surgery and not waist time and the boy's energy with the upper GI screening. After discussing this with Jess and I, we decided to take their advice and move forward with surgery today for the two. At 12:45 this afternoon Grant went into lapriscopic surgery while the nurses preped Alex to follow right after.

About an hour later Grant came back upstairs and the surgeon came to us with a puzzling look on her face. She informed us that when she got in there everything looked perfectly normal and fluids were passing freely as they should. To confirm she brought in another surgeon (who performed Ethan's NEC surgery) to take a look. Both decided that everything looked normal. She also called the radiologist to confirm what they saw in the ultrasound. With these findings they immediately cancelled Alex's surgery.

Alex will get the upper GI screen tomorrow and if they can confirm or not any issues with the pyloris muscle. If he does, then it probably will be into surgery for him (but we won't be sure if that will be Friday or next Monday).

One good thing did come from this. Grant's belly-button was herniated and looking quite odd (major outtie!!). Since she was accessing his stomach through his belly-button she fixed it when done with the surgery. He now has a very nice looking innie. I guess you could say he got his first plastic surgery. :)

So, back to the upper GI screening tomorrow, for both Alex and Grant, to find out if they can see what's happening. They will be looking to see if there is something else going on with Grant other than PS.

Your continuous prayers are greatly appreciated. We'll update as soon as we know something more. Right now everyone continues to look at the boys completely perplexed.

Here a a few pictures that we have taken over the past couple of days.
Video of Grant playing peek-a-boo with mommy!

Alex and Ethan, do you see the twins in them? Ethan still has high billiruben levels so he is a bit more yellow than Alex. He is also still almost 1.5lbs smaller than Alex.

Grant was wearing a new outfit that we got from our friends the Holland's and Faubions! They are such cute outfits.

3 comments:

Carrie said...

Hey there! That is so interesting what you mentioned about Pyloric Stenosis. My hubby, Marc, had a problem with his pyloric sphincter muscle when he was a baby and they did surgery to correct it. He still has an itty bitty scar (although I'm sure they do things differently 25 years later) but no lasting issues. I just wanted to encourage you. We will continue praying for you and your precious boys.

Anonymous said...

aww and a smile in the last one! and if it makes you feel better, when i was down there before they were born part of my opereation was to fix the pyloric valve. i hope everyone will come out of this ok. Does ethan have any eating issues as well or just alex and grant? know that our thoughts and prayers are with you guys! love- the soesbe clan

Anonymous said...

hi, my daughter has nec surgery when she was 2 weeks old, she was discharged from thhe hospital after 4.5 months, now she is home and she has feeding complications, vomiting far 1 feet away, about 20-30 cc. i am so worried.