Back to Radiology

(A sliced image from Abby's CT)

Last week Abby had a CT of her chest, abdomen and pelvis. Mostly to look for signs of aspiration in her lungs, but also to check for any other possible cause of her fever. We heard from the GI doc's office with a report that the CT "looked mostly ok" and that it didn't look like she was "aspirating all the time." Not sure exactly what that means except that we aren't as concerned about aspiration as were before the scan.

(This one's cool b/c you can see her VNS implant-upper right)

For a few days I inwardly felt like we should just give up looking for a reason. During that time I pretended her temps were normal and only checked them occasionally while skipping a few days. On the days I did take her temp it has been either just under or just above 100 F. The bummer is that she seems like she feels yuck. Today she mostly wanted to be held or wanted to sleep.

We went to the hospital again today for her Barium swallow study. Fortunately the OT that works with Abby on feeding every Monday was available to administer some of the test. It's always nice to see a familiar face. The test itself went fine, although Abby refused to swallow the nasty Barium yogurt so they weren't able to see what happens during a swallow event. We were able to then feed Barium juice into her G-tube in an attempt to observe her typical daily reflux episode. As luck would have it we didn't see much action during the short time the radiologist was willing to stand there and wait. Of course as soon as he left the room she started arching her back and then we saw the Barium juice come rolling out of her mouth. At least the OT observed it so she can include it in her notes.

So all in all we are back to square one with no answers to the fever puzzle.

On a fun note, we had special visitors this weekend! Patrick's cousin Bill, his wife Shannon and their darling little girl Maddie carved out 2 days to come hang out at our place. Bill is in the Marine Corps and has been over seas much of the past several years. We don't get to see them as much as we'd like, so this was a treat. It was also the first time for us to meet little Maddie. What a doll baby, and so happy! It was fun seeing the cousins together.