Austin's Hospital Stay

First, we want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has supported and prayed and thought of us while Austin has been going through all of his testing. This marks the 9th time our little guy has been under general anesthesia in the past 2 years.

Monday and Tuesday we were at Reston Hospital. Austin had an upper endoscopy and a 24 hour ph probe. He did great under the anesthesia and came out confused with a tube that resembled a spaghetti noodle in his nose (the probe). The top of the probe is in a little machine hooked onto him and the botom of the tube was inside him at the top of his stomach.
The results of the endoscopy came out GREAT. The burns/erosions in his esophagus (his throat was 90% burned with erosive esophagitis) were all healed! His esophagus looked great, his stomach looked great, no hiatial hernia, no apparent problems!

However, with all this great news, it still left us stumped as to why he's having such horrible reflux. He's been on high amounts of healing/acid reducers which have healed his conditions. But we still need to get down to the source-as we can't continue such high amts on the little guy for an extended period of time. So that's what the Ph probe was for. To test in a 24 hr span of time when his acids were greatest-he has this chronic cough and does is occur when he lies down, when he runs, etc. So the probe will measure all of this. We get the results back this week. Austin may have a problem aspirating food. That's another reason for the burns, coughs, etc. Instead of food going down foodpipe, it gets launched into the esophagus/trachea instead causing acid/and a lot of the symptoms he's experiencing. With Austin's tracheomalacia, it wouldn't be a surprise. I guess its just another test right? But we feel blessed that we have the best of the best pediatric specialists in the area.

We had fun though while he was in the hospital. We colored, read, watched movies, took wagon rides, Ashley even visited a lot and the night was topped off with a Daddy-Son campout! Dad stayed with him in the hospital and it was complete with ghost stories and all!
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Ashley has been saying the cutest things this week. She now says her name, "Ash-wee Tolah" and she calls princess things "shay shay". She sees Cinderella and screams, "Shay shay!" She also holds up her cute little fingers and says she's 2. She can count (follows us) and there's nothing cuter than hearing a near-2 year old count with their adorable baby inaudible vowels.
She hangs and climbs on everything. She'll jump up on a bar (grocery cart) and hang there for what seems forever. I'll just start to push the cart and she's still hanging. Finally what seems to be after 2 minutes, I see her sweaty little fingers start to slip. We signed her up for a tot tumbling class. She should love it!

The weather has been phenomenal here. In the eighties and we've been enjoying every second of it! Just wanted to give the udpate of Austin. Thanks again for the prayers. They've worked and we've felt them.
Love,
Angie