A Decision Made....

Ryan has been eating a little better.  After this last ECI appointment he has left the teens & is finally in the 20lbs!  Occupational Therapy will start Friday at our house through ECI.  We are still waiting for Baylor to get back to us from the evaluation in October.

He is scheduled for surgery December 14th for a 2nd Endoscope, 2nd pH probe insert & stretching of the stomach. The surgery has minimal risks but the entire situation we feel will be very upsetting to him.  The surgery would probably be the first one of the day because he is so young, which would mean needing to be at the hospital around 6am.  So we would need to wake him (and Jordan) no later than 5am to get there on time.  Because Jordan can not go in the prep or recovery rooms, only one of us could be with him at a time.

After he comes out of surgery his arms will be in braces so he can not bend his arms, these braces will stay on for approximately 24hrs.  He will have to "play", "eat", "nap", "bedtime" and everything with these arm braces.  I say " " because he will be so upset that he will not play, eat, nap or sleep at bedtime.  For the pH probe test, he will have a wire down his nose to check to see if his reflux medication is working.  The braces are so he can not pull the wire out.  The wire will be attached to a computer, each time he coughs, burps, cries, eats, drinks, lays down, sits up we have to hit different buttons on the computer.  And we have to keep Ryan from hitting the buttons on this computer. 

We feel that he will be so upset with these arm braces that he will either cry most of the day and/or not eat.  He could pick up food but he couldn't bend his arms to get it to his mouth.  He is a very sensitive boy and we believe this surgery could do more harm to him than good.  He is not old enough to explain the reasons for these arm braces. 

I woke up this morning & something just told me that maybe we shouldn't put him through this surgery.  Everyone says that moms have good instincts about their kids.  So I talked to Bill about it & he said that all of the same thoughts have gone through his head.  We decided together to cancel the surgery & if things get worse we will rethink it in the future.  But at this point things are getting better, so why upset him & which could make him regress?