Willy Wonka, eat your heart out!

Maggie's Upper GI was fairly uneventful this morning. She was able to take a few sips of the dreaded barium before gagging, so at least the radiologist could see her swallow and make sure there was no problem. The nurse put the rest down her tube (let's all sigh a collective "Thanks!" for the NGTube-- who knew?) Usually, they give as much barium solution as the baby would get in a regular feeding. In Maggie's case, this is 6 ounces. I was not exactly thrilled about her getting a full 6 ounces of barium, considering the problem we had with 1 ounce the first time around (I won't bore you with a recap, but it wasn't pretty). True to form, our Peanut Face performed ON DEMAND!! After only 2 ounces of solution, she refluxed like a champ! It was plain to EVERYONE in the room, even to Dan, who has little medical knowledge. We could see the round ball of the stomach, then suddenly the dark contrast shot up in a straight line to Maggie's mouth. She has "severe reflux". (Pause for a bit of snark, here: "Severe Reflux". I could have saved the insurance company tons of money, the doctors and nurses a ton of time, and my poor baby a ton of discomfort. I KNOW she has "severe reflux"! She's the exorcist baby! She can clear the couch in one puke!)

After the test, I made the nurse pull out all of the barium from Maggie's belly. We got all but about a half an ounce out, so hopefully we won't have any problems. I have been pushing her fluids all day, so I hope that will help too. We went down to the cafeteria and I had some yogurt and Maggie had some Neosure. Since our surgery consult wasn't until 1:30, we had a good chunk of time on our hands. We decided to get back in the car and drive around to look for a park or something to play in.

No luck on the playground, but we did end up at Hershey Park. Parking was free for the first 2 hours, so we were pretty happy about that. Sadly, Magoo is not big enough for ANY of the rides (least of all the roller coasters). They have a small attraction called "Chocolate World" that has a free train-type ride. Complete with singing cows (Maggie sang along), Hershey tells you how chocolate is made. An interesting tidbit: as of 10:15am, the factory had already produced over 14 million Hershey Kisses! We walked Maggie around the gift shop for a while, and headed back to the hospital.

We went up to the pediatric surgery office, and luckily they took pity on us and put us in to be seen at 11:30 instead of making us wait until our 1:30 appointment time. Maggie had fallen asleep in the car after the Chocolate World extravaganza, and slept in my arms all the way up to the office, through check in, and in the waiting room. I think getting up so early, the testing, and just being off her feeding schedule tired her out.

We met with the surgeon, who reviewed Maggie's Upper GI results with us. He told us that the GTube and Nissen were our decision, that he didn't want to push anything on us. That really comforted me. I hate when medical professionals just sort of tell you what they are GOING to do, instead of telling you what your options are. It's pretty clear from her results and her eating patterns that Maggie would benefit from both the tube and the Nissen. So we essentially just reviewed the procedure with the surgeon, signed our life away with the resident, and met with the scheduler.

Maggie is scheduled for surgery on Friday, June 26. Two weeks. I am nervous. I am also actually a little relieved. At this point, I just want to get it over with. I am hoping this will be a "fresh start" for Magoo.

I fed Maggie some squash and apples/blueberry puree in the car, and she slept all the way home. (I may have closed my eyes for a minute as well. Good thing Dan was driving....)

Dan is at Speech Therapy with Maggie now. I am contemplating a nap.

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes, thoughts, and prayers today. Keep 'em coming! The journey's not done yet.

~Sara