Yesterday's appointment and another dose of reality

So, things didn't go exactly how I thought they would yesterday but I guess that's life huh.


Warning: Don't read this post if you are grossed out easily. I am just relaying what happened at the Dr's office yesterday. Feel free to skip until further notice and I won't be offended in any way! Once again I am being open for the purpose of making the Lord known through each trial we face.


The Gastroenterologist was very nice and listened to all of the concerns I had about Elliana. They weighed her and measured her and she is in the 1.8 percentile for height and .17 percentile for weight- meaning she is below the first percentile. She asked some questions and then did a brief check up of her body. She checked her rectum and tested for blood and of course there was blood. I even took in a dirty diaper from the day before (which I thought was "softer" than normal, but still had a lot of blood) and she took a quick look over and said that it was still too hard for her to pass without straining. She ordered some more blood tests to check for allergies and to rule out Celiac Disease and a stomach x-ray to make sure all of her parts were there in the right place.
The Dr thinks that the blood is just from tears in her rectum called fissures that are caused from passing too large of stools. She basically told us to put her on a full capful of MiraLax each day ( which is an adult dose- now she is on a half capful) and that should cause everything to get really runny and then the fissures will have time to heal (if that is what it is). She said that it could take up to a year for her colon to shrink back down- so she will probably need to take the MiraLax for at least that long.
She wants to us try this for a month and then if things do not get better then we will need to do some more invasive procedures to rule out something called Hirshsprungs which is a congenital condition where part of the colon is diseased and they have to remove it surgically. But the testing for that is much more invasive and she must be put under, so we will wait on that.

After the appointment we went back to the hospital to do the x-rays and blood work. The lab people were like "your back already?!" After last week's dilema with drawing blood, the two people who tried were not about to go and poke her all over the place again to come up with nothing. So we waited for yet another person to come and I am so glad we did. She took quite a long time just feeling around her arms and hands and going back and forth trying to decide which one to use, all the while Elliana was screaming her head off because she knew what was coming. She said she was determined to get it right the first time. Well thank goodness she did- Elliana had had ENOUGH of that place! So she was able to get all 7 vials and I was so pleased it only took one poke!

Honestly I really don't know what I was expecting. I think it is just my nature to want to have the Dr say yes this is the problem and this will fix it and she will start to be a happy pain free baby all the time. And she may be right that more MiraLax is all she needs. Giving her an adult dose of laxative every day for a year does make me a little nervous, but apparantly it is safe and does not get into the blood stream like other laxatives. And I want to know what the cause of the constiptaion is and why she cries for hours and hours before and even after she goes. And why she is losing weight. And WHY did this NEVER come up in any of her medical files from Korea??? It seems absurd to think that she had absolutely NO trouble for almost a year of her life and then from the moment we got her- she had all these problems?!
In some ways I am not surprised because so much of what we were told on paper was very inconsistent with how she actually was. It is just frustrating to say the least.

So, although I felt like we came away from the appointment not knowing anything more than we already knew, Randy feels like she is doing the right thing by being conservative and reccomending something over the counter and supposedly safe for babies. I just don't know why we had to go to a specialist for that. Especially when only a week ago our pediatrition suggested we LOWER the dosage to 1/4 capful and slowly start to wean her off of it. Talk about inconsistency. Ugh.

So we will continue to do what the Dr reccomends and hope and pray that it makes a difference immediately.
And of course everyone else has their own opinions for us as well.

Well have you ever heard the saying "walk a mile in my shoes..."?
Yeah, well not everyone has. And it is a lot easier to give someone advice when you are not going through the daily-ness of what they are experiencing, I have made that mistake many times. There are many times when people just need someone to pray for them and to be a support. OR to be a shoulder to cry on when you feel like nothing is ever going to get better. I am not the expert, but am learning each day how to be there for someone without thinking I need to "fix" their problem. Only Jesus can really do that and I have the priveldge of asking Him on their behalf. This is only a small thing compared to so many others, and to a lot of people it seems like no big deal. And in the grand scheme of things- it isn't. For me today though, it is like the tip of the iceberg that is threatening to sink me. It is hard to describe how down and alone I have felt these past two months. I know where my hope is and I don't doubt that God is bigger than these daily struggles. Then why does it still linger?

And if you have walked this road before and shared with me-
THANK YOU.

And if you have been praying and offered support-
THANK YOU.

And if you have been a shoulder for me to cry on- (you know who you are)
THANK YOU.

The body of Christ is meant to encourage one another and build eachother up.

Thank you for being that and for representing Christ through your actions.

Like I said yesterday, God has given me the mission of motherhood today. I pray that I will accept the responsibilty with pure JOY and set my mind on things above not on earthly things. That through the daily struggles, my children would see my daily desperate need for a Savior who calls me to cast all my burdens on Him and learn to do the same in their own lives. It is truly a high and holy calling and one in which I feel very unequipped for.

Thank the Lord that He promises to give us everything we need and through His word and His spirit He will equip us to do every thing He calls us to do.