Doctor Dillema

I'm posting this late, but I wanted to update everyone on the latest doctor drama. A few weeks ago Nate had an episode of blood in his spit-up that was brighter than it usually is, so I emailed his pediatrician. She suggested I call his GI doctor. After a little phone tag with the nurse, I spoke to the doctor with some unpleasant results. Dr. Enav felt that we should do an endoscopy and also scope Nate from below. This would mean anesthesia and possibly intubation in addition to being an invasive procedure. He felt the benefits outweighed any risks because he wanted to look for an ulcer, gastritis, or an abnormal formation of blood vessels. At first those things didn't sound so bad but I made the mistake of asking what could happen if we left those things untreated and was told an ulcer could perforate his stomach, gastritis would need to be biopsied to look for cancer, and the abnormal formation of blood vessels could possibly burst and hemorrhage. Basically as a mom I heard, "He could die, he could die, and he could die".

Coincidentally this happened when our pediatrician and the pediatric GI were on vacation but they wanted to schedule Nate for the week the GI was back. We put it on the calendar, knowing we might cancel it and then agonized about the decision for a week and a half. Ultimately we decided it was far more likely that the blood is just from irritation in his esophagus from the reflux and that most likely if it was something serious we would see worsening of his symptoms. He seems to have been getting better, not worse, so we decided to hold off for now. If things change we can re-schedule the procedure. When I saw Nate's pediatrician for his four-month check-up, she said she agreed with us and that the chances that it is something horrible are pretty small and the chances that not only is it something bad but that waiting until we saw symptoms worsen causing irreparable damage are even smaller.

So, for now we are holding off on any invasive procedures and tests. Every time he has a bad day, I second guess myself but for now it seems like the thing that makes the most sense. Hopefully, it is nothing more serious than his reflux and it will go away on its own. We did request to treat the reflux more aggressively to see if that helps.