Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

Say that five times fast. That is the name of the procedure that Bentley had today. We've been debating whether or not to do this scope for a couple of months now, but since he seems to have a negative reaction to almost every food trial we've put him through we ultimately decided to move forward with the procedure. The main objective of the scope was to look for any signs of a rare allergic disorder called Eosinophilic Esophagities (EE) in his esophagus, stomach, and small intestine. I don't want him to have this disorder (it's a pretty nasty one), but I would like to have some answers as to why he's had so many eating issues. Feeding him has been difficult since day one and it has been frustrating to say the least.

They have special little gowns at the hospital for babies. Here is my precious boy getting ready for his scope:

The poor boy was so hungry since he wasn't allowed to eat for 8 hours before we checked-in at the hospital. Then once we got there they made us wait an additional 2 hours before he was taken back for the scope. Can you tell we didn't have the luxury of going to a children's hospital? To top it off, he was exhausted because we woke him up early in the morning to make sure that we got to the hospital at our check-in time. By the time the doctor arrived Bentley's morning nap was way past due.

I was so nervous about this procedure. Bentley has a great GI doctor and I have full confidence in his abilities, but I was mostly concerned about my little guy not waking up from the anesthesia! They let us go back to the operating room while they put him under, and it was so hard to leave the room once it was time. Thank you to everyone who fasted and kept him in your prayers. Everything went well and the good news is that the doctor didn't see any visual signs of the disease (or any other problems) other than a little inflammation in the stomach. We won't get the results of the biopsies until Monday, but I personally don't think that he has EE. I'm starting to think that he just has some serious food hypersensitivities that he will eventually outgrow. I guess only time will tell.

Bentley did not wake up from the anesthesia happy, but once all of the cords were removed and I could walk around with him he calmed down pretty quickly. He was so exhausted that he fell asleep on the way home without eating. As soon as he woke up and took a bottle he was back to his normal self. What a trooper!