Last Ditch Effort

I'm so drained. Feeding Evan is exhausting. Our goal is 100 calories per Kilo per day. He's almost 11 Kilos, and that's a lot of calories for a kid who doesn't swallow anything he has to chew.

The last few years days have been especially difficult. Evan's been throwing up a ton. He's been fighting me like I'm trying to feed him worms or habenero chilies. There have been meals where I'm not sure if I'm wearing more than he's ingested. We have these good runs where for weeks at a time he'll eat like a champ. He was eating 9 ounces of yogurt and baby food in 15 minutes, and then for no reason he'll just slide back into his old routine of fighting and barfing.

I'd like to believe that it's because he's growing and his prevacid dose needs to be adjusted and then he will be fine again. But deep down I know there has to be something else going on, right? I can say teeth, or a cold, but come on, really? He's almost two years old, he has not outgrown the reflux, like most children do, he's not swallowing ANYTHING he has to chew. He chews stuff. He seems to really enjoy trying to eat food, but when it comes to swallowing, he just spits whatever it is out. Sometimes what he spits out is so pulverized that it's smoother than his purees.

We go to Occupational Therapy once a week, for an hour, but I'm not sure it's doing any good. The improvements are so small they are almost invisible to an everyday caregiver. And with the improvements come the mudslidesbackslides, which are painfully obvious.

We saw GI today. Our doctor is out on medical leave, so that buys us a bit of time to try one last ditch effort. We are switching from Prevacid to Prilosec, sometimes people have better luck with different drugs. I'm not optimistic. I'm concerned that in my efforts to keep my babe out of the hospital, I might be subjecting him to 2 more months of pain, suffering and possible esophageal damage. What do you do though? The last thing you want to do is have your baby child sedated and frightened by an overnight stay in the hospital, a scope shoved down his throat and tissue samples cutout of his little body. Especially this boy who is so afraid as it is. I can't take him near a nurse without him crying his eyes out and screaming, hands flailing-- finished. go. please. It's heartbreaking. I just have to try everything before I subject him to that, don't I? I hate this second guessing, I hate not knowing clearly what to do, I hate that I cannot fix my baby.