The Boy

The title of this photo shoot could be: "101 ways to take a blurry picture" - so many cute poses that are miserably out of focus. Drat!

I thought I'd take a minute to give a complete and thorough update for any who are interested about William's medical situation (if you're not interested, just tell me how cute the pictures are and then please feel free to move on). I wish I could.

Starting at about 5 weeks my boy started having some blood in his stool - nothing dramatic, but enough to go, "hey, that's probably not a good thing." A quick visit to the pediatrician (in CT, no less, since we were visiting my folks at the time) confirmed that this was nothing to be terribly concerned about, likely just a milk allergy. I was instructed to avoid dairy and make an appointment to see his regular pediatrician when we got home.

We did that, and saw her several more times, each time with the same update of "he is doing so well and is a picture of health... except for his diapers"... anyway, I think she ran out of good ideas and so referred us to the pediatric GI specialist in DC. Oh, and over the course of these 6+ weeks I have been honing my diet to avoid all possible allergens and not starve myself in the process. Not a whole lot changed in the poop department, though he has continued to thrive otherwise.

Today was our big trip to DC and the doctor was generally very reassuring that the diagnosis was correct given his symptoms, and was very much in favor of continued breastfeeding as long has his anemia did not worsen.

Oh, and I can stop making myself nuts with the diet - apparently milk and soy are really the only two proteins proven to be offenders in this instance, so as long as I stay clear of them I can re-expand my food choices. Yes.

But wait, there's more! The phone rings at 9:00 tonight and it is the doctor with lab results showing that the anemia is worse and he wants to see him again and do a quick scope and biopsy to make sure we know what we are dealing with. So, we get to drive back to DC again on Friday - yippee. In the meantime, iron drops and increased vigilance to make sure he is still eating well and not becoming lethargic. Vigilance is what I do best.

So, that's the rundown. More nitty-gritty than I generally want my blog posts to be, but as I have alluded to this whole situation several times I figured I might as well put it all out there so I don't have to keep explaining myself. Thanks as always for listening!