Friday was our big hospital day when we took Ellie in to get her endoscopy/biopsy. We got there bright and early, and Ellie immediately dived into all the fun stuff in the waiting rooms.
Our cute little patient got all checked out pre-surgery.
Such a cute hospital patient!
Ellie loved the waiting room . . . until about 10 minutes before the procedure, then things started to
get rough -- and the last couple minutes were heartbreaking, as she
cried and sobbed as the anesthesiologist took her away to the surgery. After having three babies get tubes in, and Annie getting a second set
at 3, I have to say, the older they get, the harder it is to send them
into surgery! She was so much more scared than just confused or lost looking as we sent her off. I'm not looking forward to doing this again (and unfortunately, it looks like regular endoscopies are gonna be a norm.)
I don't have any pictures of her in recovery, because of a miscommunication between hospital staff (that had left me ever-increasingly worried out in the waiting room!) We'd decided Greg would go in with her for the first 5-15 minute recovery room as she came too (where she could only have one parent with her), while I stayed and talked to the doctor post-surgery. After I was done talking to the doctor I asked the receptionist if I could go back and join them and I was told that she wasn't in the regular recovery room yet. I called my Mom, Mother-in-Law, sisters, sister-in-laws and a friend or two to let them know she was out of surgery, and yet each time I checked they said I couldn't go back yet. I was really starting to panic about this -- they'd said she'd only be back in the 'one-parent-only'' room for a few minutes, and it got to be almost 45 minutes and I was still being told I couldn't go see her. I kept trying to call Greg, but the calls weren't going through.
Turns out, she had come right out of anesthesia no problem, they'd quickly moved her to Recovery, and her and Greg had been hanging out watching cartoons for most of an hour, waiting for me to bring back her clothes. (They hadn't thought to call for me though, since they were enjoying multiple orange slushees.) :-)
She came home with a surprise (additional) diagnosis of Eosinophilic
Esophagitis, which is an "allergic inflammatory disease characterized by
elevated eosinophils in the esophagus," plus we'll have to wait to see
what the biopsies say about Celiac. The good news was that the
intestines don't look really irritated or inflamed, so if it's Celiac,
it's still relatively minor damage.
But, now we're making an appt. with the allergist to figure out more
food allergies (since taking her off milk hasn't done enough good yet.)
So, no real answers to the questions we went in with -- just more
questions and an extra diagnosis . . . we should hear back this week on
the biopsies.
Fortunately, Annie's blood work came back clear and normal. The boys on the other hand may be going in for endoscopies of their own in the next couple weeks, since both are showing some concerning blood/stool lab results. We're waiting to hear final results from Ellie's procedure until we decide how to proceed on the boys.
Fortunately, Ellie bounced right back and had a fun afternoon with Uncle Cody, including a sleepover complete with fort making!
