Scope results...

Today Carter had a scope of his entire GI system.  He was scoped from above and below, and everything from above looked great.  The G.I. Doctor and surgeon both performed the scope themselves.  They saw nothing wrong with Carter's stomach or pylorus.  They did do a few biopsies just to make sure everything was ok. Although everything looked good from the topside, they did find multiple problems from below.  The first was a stricture (narrowed area in his bowel) about 13cm's into Carter's bowel.  The abnormality with this stricture was that it would not dilate and the tissue looked white. This means it is not healthy tissue.  The next problem they found was a very dilated area in Carter's bowel.  This was unexplainable and right now they have no idea why it is so big.  The doctors also feel that the intestine that was reattached could have been attached backwards.  Another possibility is that the tissue that was reattached is not colon, and it could be some other type of tissue.  To put it quite simply, there are a lot of different things that could be going on with Carter's bowels.  The multiple biopsies and other tests performed over the last few days should give us more details about what is going on.

The surgeon did place a large red rubber catheter into Carter's stoma that goes past the added length to Carter's bowel.  He or the nurses will come up in a little bit to teach me how to irrigate the tube and remove the stool from Carter's bowels.  I will need to do this every 3-4 hours day and night.  This will allow Carter's bowels to empty and hopefully he will be able to tolerate a small amount of formula and we will be able to decrease his IV nutrition.  This is not a permanent fix although we are hoping it will buy us a little time to figure everything out.  Please pray the irrigation of Carter's bowel will work and we will be able to turn his IV nutrition down.

Our surgeon informed us that he will not send us home until all of this is figured out and Carter is thriving.  He told me it would be unrealistic to think that Carter would not continue to need TPN and lipids to an extent over the next year, although he hopes that they will only be supplemental to Carter formula feeding.  We were very encouraged after speaking with his surgeon and GI doctor today.  They gave us hope that no one else has in the past 5 months.  Hope that Carter will get better and together we will figure all of this out.  Thank you all so much for all of your continue outpouring of support.  Please know that even though I may not write you back (I tend to be a bit busy these days) I read each and everyone of your comments, texts and e-mails.  They mean so much to us and we are extremely thankful.

On a more positive note, Carter has started trying to stand by himself some.  Here is a cute video I took today before his scope.