Finally, Juliana gets a win!

This week has been tough. On Tuesday, we took Juliana to the gastroenterologist. Last time we met him, he was arrogant, and abrasive with us (he was excellent with Juliana, though). Ryan told me to give him another chance, so we did.

We were dismayed to see that Juliana had only gained 2 ounces when she was weighed, but it wasn't like we were shocked. She had experienced a significant decrease in the amount of food she had been eating since she was started on Prevacid. Thankfully, the doctor listened to us this time, and agreed that Prevacid was doing more harm than good and started her back on Zantac. He also gave us a prescription for a medicine that would coat her esophagus. He thinks that she has learned to associate eating with pain, and hopefully this new medicine will help take away the pain of eating. We have to re-train her to believe that eating doesn't hurt. We go back in another 2 weeks for a weight check and to see if the medicine works.

Today, I took Juliana to the cardiologist (we really like this guy, so if you ever need a pediatric cardiologist, which I hope you don't, I strongly recommend him). Ryan stayed home with Noah, who was running a fever and had thrown up in the night (unfortunately I discovered it at 7 AM when I went to get him up).

They were running behind due to some medical emergencies in the morning, but Juliana was pretty happy. We were finally brought back to a room, and they did the usual: blood pressure, oxygen, pulse, and EKG. When the doctor came in, he was concerned about her lack of weight gain, but I assured him we were seeing the gastro guy in his office. He listened to her heart and said the murmur was much more faint, but he wanted to do an echocardiogram to confirm it, as well as check on her left ventricle.

This is where Juliana began to make us pay for the long wait. It took me a half hour to get her calmed down and asleep, and then the doctor was able to do the echo. He was very thorough, even checking the bloodvessels up into the neck. He spent a good 25 minutes on the echo (see why I like this man so much?). At the end, he looked at me and said the words I needed to hear this week, "2 of the holes are totally closed, and the third one has gotten much smaller. Her left ventricle is slightly enlarged, but it's within normal limits. I don't need to see her again until the summer." I was floored. I couldn't believe it. Finally, Juliana got a win! Thank you God, and thank you to everyone who has prayed for our little girl.