*this weeks dr visits*

Delilahs pulmonologist finally called me back yesterday and got her pH probe scheduled for Monday, July 20th. We will be admitted to the RTU at Primary Children's Hospital and stay for 24 hrs. They will place a feeding tube through her nose and into her stomach and leave it there for 24hrs. The tube has two probes on it that measure any reflux activity. She has to be off all her reflux meds from tomorrow until the test on Monday. I have a feeling the next 3 days are going to be hell. She has bad reflux with the meds so I'm very nervous about how its going to be without them. But, to have an accurate test she needs to have it all out of her system as they suppress the stomach acid and that's what they are monitoring. The only thing we can give her is Tylenol and Gas drops... ugh its going to be a long weekend. And to top it off we have a lot going on so I just hope we make it through in one piece!

On another note she has been so much happier the last few days. I discovered earlier this week that the rice cereal we were using (the Gerber brand) has milk/lactose in it and we are giving her Nutramigen formula which is a hypoallergenic formula so by us adding the rice cereal with milk in it its defeating the purpose of giving her the Nutramigen formula. After finding this out I had Scott pick up some soy and lactose free rice cereal (beech nut brand) and have been adding this to her bottles instead. Unfortunately it will take a few weeks for all the milk protein to be completely out of her system but I hope it helps! Her little tummy is always hurting her and she always has diarrhea :( But she already seems calmer and isn't screaming in pain as much as she was before the change in the rice cereal. So, to make a long story short this means she probably has a milk protein allergy. Most of the time kids grow out of it but we will have to wait and see. The only way to 100% know for sure is to have allergy testing done and usually they wont do that until they are older or having hives of an unknown origin often.

We also had to take her off all solids for the time being. We had started her on vegetables but her reflux was flaring so bad that we decided to hold off for a bit. I don't know if it was just a reflux flare or an allergy to what she was eating. She never got a rash though so I think that the baby food just may have been too acidic for her already fragile throat and tummy to handle. She really liked it though and watches when we eat so I know shes ready for solids. After her testing is done and we know what the next step is we will reintroduce solids. I have been told that any orange baby food (ie carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, etc) are very acidic and cause reflux to flare. The only food she did really well on was green beans. Maybe she just isn't meant to eat orange food lol!

I have also had quite a few dr appointments lately. My blood pressure is still very high and I have more protein in my urine now then I did with the preeclamsia during my pregnancy so my dr is wondering if the preeclamsia caused kidney damage. I have had numerous blood tests done to check my kidney function and was put on blood pressure medication to hopefully lower my b/p and keep my kidneys from any further damage. I go in to see my urologist next week to go over all my results. I really hope things are fine and its nothing. I just cant take any more medical crap right now!

Other than that Scott and I are running ourselves ragged between his schooling, work, my work, Lilah's issues, dr appointments and everything else that's going on in our lives. One day I hope it slows down. At this point I'd even just take one day!!!