What was the point of that then?

After yesterday's debacle, I was sorta expecting an improvement in today's activites.  Well, things didn't go quite as badly as Monday, but one majorly stoopid thing did.

We're up at CHOW at least once a month, and sometimes more than once a week.  Well, even though I officially hate the drive up there after my speeding ticket yesterday (AND that bastard cop was waiting in exactly the same spot today in the other direction, catching us 'criminals' while we ferry our little darlings to and from the hospital), I had to do it again today for a Gastric Emptying Study.  (It's not a proper noun, but I feel it adds gravitas, don't you?)

The point of a GES is to observe how the stomach and digestive tract responds to food, and how long it takes said food to move through a child's system until there is no trace of it left in the stomach.  Usually this takes about 90 minutes.  So, we arrived at 11am as instructed, after skipping Owen's breakfast to ensure his stomach was empty.  Most children would be extremely put out about skipping a meal, but Owen quite frankly couldn't have cared less - in fact, his mood was better than usual because he hadn't spent several hours blowing chunks.  Anyway, we started the test after a fairly lengthy discussion as to how much food to put in to O's stomach, at what rate, and what they'd be looking for during the study.  They wanted to put in as much as he normally gets in an hour over five minutes, but I had to point out that if you put in that much in anything less than one hour, Owen WILL throw up.  So the technician suggested half.  I suggested a quarter.  We settled on one third.

She pushed one third of his food (about 60ml) in to his g-tube over seven minutes, during which time we discussed how the test would conclude.  Either Owen wouldn't reflux at all and would lie perfectly still for 90 minutes while the scan followed some radioactive material through his stomach, or he would throw up everything she'd just pushed in and the test would be over.

Natually, my son did just that.  About twenty seconds after she'd clamped his g-tube closed, he spurted a fountain of formula all over his chest, and the test was over.

So, I wasted two 40 minute drives and a half hour in a radiology lab for the technician to tell me that Owen had failed the test.  I'll say!  She couldn't even get the equipment up and running before that child threw up!  Failure is always an option in our household.

I did TELL her he'd throw up.  She really should have listened.

Tina.