Torturing Asher

In an effort to find out what's causing Asher's gastro-intestinal distress, he has had to endure a battery of torturous medical tests over the past few days.

Asher first visited the pediatric allergist, who heard Asher's story and said it sounds like eosinophilic esophagitis. The symptoms do quite resemble Asher's symptoms. If it is this condition, it explains why Asher's vomitting isn't like reflux vomitting and why he's not improving on reflux meds. To cure him, all we'll need to do is keep him away from the foods causing the allergy.

Two vials of blood were taken from our little dude to see if we can determine what is causing the allergy (if it is, indeed, this condition). We need to go back and get his skin tested, but that's another day.

The next day was shear torture: the upper gi series. This is the test where you drink some nasty-tasting barium and lay on a table and get x-rays taken of your belly while the barium is going through the digestive tract. It's quite neat if you're into that kind of stuff, but for a 17-month old who doesn't understand what's going on, it's really really scary. They strapped him down onto a board, strapped his arms over his head, put him under this big, noisy machine, and force-fed him some nasty goop.

The good news is that he's anatomically correct -- all the parts are there and in the right position. Even better news: no sign of reflux -- even with a belly full of barium, them pushing on his belly trying to provoke the reflux, and him screaming and crying in fear. If there ever was a time when a child would reflux, it would have been then. Which gives even more credibility to the eosinophilic esophagitis theory.

So we'll continue down this path and see where it takes us. Hopefully it'll take us to a healthy happy Asher -- one who doesn't vomit so regularly and who eats age appropriately.

We'll post his progress.

Put in-Take out

Asher has another game: the put-in-take-out game. I think you can get an idea of how it goes: you put something into a box, then take it back out. Except Asher's game has a twist to it: he puts a toy into the garbage can, then walks away before you notice him doing it. We have inadvertently thrown away a lot of stuff.

Adorable Asher

Asher has a new game. While we're in the kitchen fixing a meal, he toddles into the adjoining dining room and hides behind the wall separating the two rooms. Just before he hides, he smiles, waves, and says, "bye-bye". A moment later, he reappears laughing.

If we're too busy and don't play the game with him, he continues to say "bye-bye", each time getting louder and longer until we pay attention to him and play. If we play the game with him, he laughs hysterically.

We love the game too.

The Greatest Show on Earth!

Simi and I went to the Circus today. What a blast! Before the show they let people in an hour early to go down to the floor and watch some warmup stuff, and that was a lot of fun. Simi loved the show, especially the animals (elephants, horses, lions, and even a zebra!), the motorcycles, and the popcorn. And he got a new motorcycle to vroom!

We had excellent seats, 4th row, so we got a great view of everything, though taking pictures in the dark is tough. Simi enjoyed every minute of it (except he got a little bored waiting in line for popcorn). Hopefully next year we can take Asher as well.

-raj

Babysitter

We went out on a date, actually got a babysitter and went out to a nice restaraunt. Cecelia came over at 6:30, and Asher started crying when we left as we expected. We were nervous the entire time that he wouldn't stop crying or would throw up, but were delighted to hear both boys giggling when we got back home. Next time we'll be able to enjoy the night more not worrying about the boys, though we still had a good time.

We went to Backus, on Ninth St, a very nice Tapas place. It took a while to get noticed and seated at the bar, and the "about 15 minutes for a table" became "nevermind the table", but the food was very good, as was the Sangria, and it was a beautiful place. Next time we'll make reservations.

-raj

Acupuncture

Asher's ear infection/sinus infection and vomiting didn't seem to be getting better, so a few weeks ago we took Asher to see an acupuncturist. Dr. Chen came very highly recommended, and I had listened to him give a talk a couple of years ago when we were thinking of taking Simi. He only used the needles briefly because of Asher's age (though Dr. Chen said he'd never seen a baby take the needles so well), and focused on Acupressure and teaching us a few things to do a few times a day.

Dr. Chen was very optomistic we'd see immediate results, and we were slightly disappointed when Asher vomitted that afternoon as he had pretty much every day for quite a while, but he hasn't thrown up since. We went back a week after the initial appointment for a followup, and will only go back as needed now. Perhaps it's a coincidence, maybe the meds finally kicked in or his body fought it off, but we certainly are gaining more faith in it.

-raj

King for the Day!

Simi was "King for the Day" today. One of the moms from his class brough in a cake (something to do with Lent) and Simi got the lucky piece with a baby on it. He got to make a nice crown and wear it in class and take it home.

The boys look especially cute wearing matching shirts, Simi picked it out before he Asher, pure coincidence but awfully cute.

-raj