Upper GI Study

Annie was NPO last night for 8 hours in prep for her UGI this morning.  She's had this test several times in her life, but this time, since they wanted to watch the contrast get all the way through the small intestines, it took a little longer than usual, about 2 1/2 hours.

The radiologist was happy with the images she got and said there were no signs of blockages, but she'll have to study the images to look for evidence of inflammation in the walls of the small intestines.  We are still waiting to hear the results.

Justin playing with Annie on his iPhone to help cheer her up and distract her.

It's always interesting to see these scans, but even more so since getting the rods in her back.  This picture below is of Annie laying on her side, facing to the left side of the picture.  You can see her g-tube on the left and the contrast starting to go into her tummy.  Her spine is on the right and you can see how long the screws are that go into each vertebrae to secure the rods to her spine. 

This picture below was after they rolled Annie onto her back. So you can see her stomach full of the contrast, and how a little bit of it is starting to move into her small intestines.  And of course you can see the rods in her back as well.  She stayed on the table for over 2 hours to wait for the contrast to continue on down to her colon.  Hopefully we'll get some results soon.

Since starting Annie's g-tube feedings a day or two ago (I'm having a hard time keeping my days straight) she's been having very thick secretions and mucous.  She struggles quite a bit with it at times and is requiring a fair amount of suctioning.  Sometimes she gets a little gaggy with it and we have to pause her feeds for a while.

Annie also continues to have her fevers over 101 degrees.  She's still getting Motrin around the clock to keep them down.  We are still waiting for the results of her calprotectin and third c-diff culture.  Hopefully that will come back negative so Annie's isolation status can be lifted and these poor nurses can quit gowning up every time they come in the room!  Tomorrow they'll do blood work again to recheck her CRP and WBC among other things.

The hospitalist and infectious diseases team agree that no changes should be made to her antibiotics unless she gets worse, or we get an actual diagnosis and know what we're treating.  The plan is to get these UGI results back, consult with the GI, and find out if an endoscopy and/or colonoscopy is needed.