Ty's Endoscopy

So as I said last time- Ty had to have an endoscopy scheduled to check on his villi (hair like fingers in his intestine) and to take a biopsy of his small intestine.  

I had to take him out of school in order to fit into the drs schedule- which kind of bugged me.  The procedure was done up at Primary Children's- so obviously ALL the patients are kids- but none of the kids were scheduled into the afternoon.  Probably not that big of a deal, except that they have to come in fasting... So, Ty's endo wasn't scheduled until 1:30... and he was STARVING by the time he checked in.  Poor kid.  

When we first got there, Ty had to change into hospital robes and have all of his vitals taken.  He thought it was kind of cool- and asked if he could take his new pajamas home.  Unfortunately for him, the nurse told him that they needed the pajamas for the next kid.  Shoot.  

After that, there was a whole lot of waiting.  But- the hospital was prepared... with any and every video game system ever invented (okay- so there wasn't an Atari... but almost everything else), and any kid game you could imagine.  Ty was in heaven.  In fact- he probably would have sat there all day if the nurses would have let him.

 Anyway- once he finally got into the operating room, the procedure went just fine.  The dr came out after she did the biopsy to show me some pictures of what she had found and walked me through what we needed to do.  The pictures were just that- pictures, so the actual celiac diagnosis couldn't come from that- but his dr explained that she was almost 100% certain that it was indeed celiac and that Ty should start on a gluten free diet as soon as we got home.  Poo.  And yay.  It's the ultimate crappy happy.

Although- I have to admit... I did get a little dose of perspective while I was sitting in the waiting room.  They threw me in with ALL the parents who's kids were having surgery that day.  And there were some pretty gosh darn scary cases.  In all- if my little ones ONLY have to go something like celiac- then I think I can count myself and my kids pretty lucky.  I sat and talked with moms whose kids had terminal cancer, and others who had kid with crooked spines... It was insane.  And humbling.  I was all worried about how hard this was going to be on my baby- but it could be so much worse.  This at least has something to solve the problem- don't eat gluten and you won't be sick.  That's way easier than trying to have chemo.

It took Ty about 30 minutes to really come out of the general anesthesia.  He was kind of silly though... He kept trying to sit up, but he couldn't hold himself there- so he'd sit up and immediately fall over.  The nurse and I sat on either side of him for about 20 minutes taking turns catching him.  It was funny.  Once he was really awake, he got a banana flavored slushie to suck on and access to his very own remote control- which he quickly put to use.  He sat and watched Jake and the Neverland Pirates for another 30 minutes before the nurse deemed him ready to go home.

I wheeled him out in a wheelchair and carted him home to an anxiously waiting little brother.  Ryan was beside himself when he found out he couldn't go with me and Ty.  When Ty assured him that he was indeed okay- he also made it known how hungry he was.  So we amassed the troops and went out to dinner.  And we had a celebration!  We celebrated the fact that Ty was no longer going to have migraines or runny poops (yes- we actually toasted to that).  We celebrated no more tummy aches and less cold sores.  We all tried our very best to show Ty what a good thing this diagnosis is- he doesn't have to be sick any more.  Which really does call for a celebration.

I'm so proud of my brave little boy- he took the whole day in stride along with his diagnosis.  Way to go bud!