Poor kid has had quite a time the last couple of weeks. On the 4th of July, he started having quite a bit of blood in his messy diapers - enough to totally freak me out! All day Sunday and then all day Monday he had quite a bit, but nothing else seemed to be wrong - he was still his normal smiley self. We were finally able to get him into the Dr. Tuesday the 6th (the day he turned 2 months old).
After checking him, the Dr. was pretty puzzled because normally he would have said he had a Cow's milk protein intolerance, but since he was such a happy baby he wanted to have him have a Meckles Scan just to rule out Meckles Diverticulum. Some babies have a finger like indentation in their small intestine where the umbilical cord was attached and didn't get totally cut off. This indentation is called a Meckles Diverticulum and it can make it's own stomach or even pancreatic fluid that can cause an irritation and in turn cause bleeding. If that's the case, it needs to be surgically removed.
So we set up an appointment at Primary Children's Hospital on the 9th. The poor little guy couldn't eat for four hours before the procedure and BOY WAS HE HUNGRY!!! I think that was actually the worst part for him.
They put an IV in his little hand, inserted some Zantac to keep the stomach fluids contained, then 20 min. later, they added Technetium-99m, a radioactive substance that will pick up any abnormalities during the scan.
Then, he was scanned for 30 minutes - and THANKFULLY nothing showed up!! In the picutre below, the two black boxes on the screen are of his little body. The top one is from the front and the bottom is his back. The two little white areas are his little tummy and his bladder. If there had been anything abnormal, it would have glowed as well.
I was SO proud of him - he did such a good job during the test. It seems crazy to feel proud of a 2 month old, but he really did a great job. And boy was he happy to eat after a five hour starvation:)
On one hand it would have been nice to see a positive so we would know for sure what it was, but on the other hand, we're so thankful he won't have to have surgery. After talking to his Dr., and doing some research online, we've decided to see if it really is the milk intolerance. SO, I have to stop eating dairy to see if it goes away. SO FAR, he hasn't had any blood since I stopped and everything seems to be getting better. It's probably a good thing I'm a milk hater - I really don't know how you could do it otherwise! So, bring on the soy milk - I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get our little guy healthy. Thanks for all the prayers!!!!!
