Mia's continuing health issues

January was kind of a dull month for the kids, although they did plenty of normal awesome stuff that they do all the time. Mia's still having health problems, though, and I wanted to wait until she saw her gastroenterologist today before writing about it. Visits to the doctor are always fun!

First I took her to her pediatrician in the middle of the month. We were a bit worried about early puberty, but her doctor told us there was nothing to worry about in that regard. That's nice. The more important visit was to the gastroenterologist. Since October, Mia has been having some worrisome vomiting problems, and I have been tracking it. In January she vomited 7 times, which means every 4-5 days, and that's way too much. It was messing her up, too - she was losing weight, because we couldn't feed her as much as she was throwing it up so much. We had been feeding her 3 boxes of formula a day, which was enough for her to get her weight up. Now we can't do more than 2, because if we try to get the third box in her, she throws up. If we gave her seizure medication, she threw that up, too. We have to give her the seizure medication when she has something in her stomach, too, which is annoying. So we stopped feeding her the third box - the people at school would give her 2, and then I would just try to get her to eat solid food when she got home. That's a fool's errand, though, and so her weight dropped. Plus, it's been dicey giving her the seizure medication, because some days she simply doesn't eat anything. This was leading to more seizures, which messed up her sleeping. So she was more tired, which helps lead to ... more vomiting! Yes, the cycle is quite fun, why do you ask?

I told the gastroenterologist that I wouldn't mind it one bit if we had to hospitalize her for a few days so that all her doctors could look at her in a controlled environment. As I've mentioned before, they can never get a good reading on her EEG because she doesn't fall asleep, but if she were in the hospital for the entire time, I'm sure she'd have a seizure at some point. Plus, she might throw up at some point, especially if they tried to get too much food in her. I told the doctor that it seemed like her stomach wasn't emptying, because occasionally she'll vomit when she hasn't had anything for many hours, and formula comes up. Your stomach should clear every 3-4 hours, so if it's been longer than that, something isn't working in her stomach. She ordered a test to track the path of food through her, but we haven't scheduled it yet. She also gave her new formula, which is supposed to empty out of her stomach more quickly. Mia was doing pretty well with her weight for much of last year, but she's back down to 49/50 pounds, which is significant when she should be 55 pounds or higher. So we're going to try the new formula this week, and if she doesn't puke, we're good to go! I still think it would be better to do the test to make sure everything is going through her at the correct rate. I suppose that's the next step.

It's very frustrating, but that's just life with Mia. Every so often, things will be going relatively well, and we should look out, because we know something crappy is coming soon! Her seizures do seem a bit better recently, so that's something. She's still pooping fairly well, so that's also something. But she really needs to gain weight. Again. Sigh. Rinse and repeat, really.