FYI

Just for those who are wondering, our tests went well--although we won't receive the results for a week or so. We stayed 24 hours in the hospital while the pH probe continuously read Brynn's esophogeal acidity levels. Anything above a 4 (up to 7) was considered normal, anything below (to 1) was considered reflux. She was a good sport since the probe went down like her NG tube and it probably felt all the same to her. It was interesting to see that although many kids get reflux most often on a full belly (lots of food to come through the sphincter), Brynn's lowest scores were consistently on a near-empty or totally empty stomach. That would explain why she often vomits 2 hours after a feed.

When they did the upper GI endoscopy ("scope" for short), they didn't see any visible irritation, but took eight tiny samples of her GI lining for biopsy--two from her esophogus, two from her stomach, and four from her small intestine. These samples will let us know if she has irritation not visible to the scope camera. Interestingly enough, the biopsies will be able to determine just about everything about any possible cause for irritation--whether it be allergy, contaminate, bacteria, acidity, etc.

We're hoping the results come back telling us she has only a fair amount of reflux so we can spare her the Nissen Fundoplication ("Fundo" for short). This operation often causes more problems than it solves. Please, oh please, just the G-tube, thank you.