another silas medical update

the last medical update on silas was about his appointment with the cardiologist and i think i mentioned there that we also had an appointment scheduled with a pediatric surgeon.  we were also referred there because of the risk of bowel malrotation that you so often see with situs inversus.

so we met with the surgeon last thursday.  john went with me and while we were waiting for the doctor to come in to the exam room, silas was getting hungry.  i breastfed him and because we are also supplementing with a little formula, john offered to feed silas a bottle.  well, while he was trying to burp him, silas had a HUGE blowout that went all over john's shorts.  and right then, the surgeon walked in!  john was amazing and had a great attitude about it and we were all laughing that silas definitely does not have a problem with making dirty diapers!

the surgeon was really sweet and thorough and went over all the different scenarios we might face with a child with situs inversus.  he first recommended that we have an upper GI test done to absolutely confirm what the abdominal ultrasound showed...that there truly is no malrotation.  the issue seemed to be that the small bowel was clearly on one side and the larger bowel on the other side.  if there was malrotation, he would need surgery.  the surgery would most likely be laprascopic and would involve a hospital stay for a day or two.  if there was no malrotation, he would err on the conservative side and not pursue surgery until a problem perhaps arose later in life.

so we scheduled the upper GI test for the following morning.  poor little guy had to drink a bottle of barium while they watched how it went through his bowels.  then they took three additional x-rays to make sure they had good pictures for the surgeon.  silas couldn't have anything to eat/drink for three hours prior to the test so that was a challenge to time his feeding in the night to make the last one as close to the three hour window as possible.  then he refused to drink the barium out of their bottle.  fortunately i had one of our bottles with us, so they transferred the barium to that and thankfully after some coaxing, he drank what was needed to get the x-rays.  it was tortuous for me to hear him scream as they held him down and still while doing the x-rays.

then the waiting game began.  i've always felt that silas was going to be okay, even though we needed to complete all these tests to make sure.  the cardiologist appointment was exactly what i expected and i just felt the same about this one too.

finally, on wednesday the surgeon called and gave me the news i was hoping to hear...he does NOT need surgery!  in fact, his bowels are in the position that the surgeon would put them in if he had needed surgery!  he went over again the importance of telling any medical professional that silas sees about his situs inversus because everything will be flipped.  this is particularly important before any test is performed of if he were to have appendicitis (since his appendix is on the left instead of the right).  he still runs a risk of a volvulus (a volvulus is a twisting of the intestine that can occur in childhood. it causes a blockage, and may cut off blood flow and damage part of the intestine).  the signs of this would be green vomit and/or a distended abdomen.  we know to take him immediately to the ER of the children's hospital if he has either of these symptoms.

the surgeon sounded confident that we are now educated enough to know if there is a real problem so he doesn't need to see us back until silas is a year old.  i think he just wants to follow up and check on things again when he is a little older.

we are so relieved and so thankful to have this part of the journey behind us.  i *think* from this point forward we will just have our regular baby checkup appointments, hooray!  he's been such a little trooper about it all but we are both ready to just hang out at home and rest and eat whenever we want and not worry about the timing of those things with appointments!

thanks for following his health issues and praying for us!  the Lord is good and we are thankful for His protection over silas' life!