Rocks and hard places

Posted on January 21, 2015 by jeffcuz

The past few months have been a roller coaster when it comes to J.P.’s health.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, J.P. started to have issues where he sounds congested and eventually vomits.

For Paige and I, it seemed very similar to what happened while we were in team training at Canine Companions for Independence, and we began to worry about his shunt.

J.P. was taken to Florida Hospital for Children’s emergency room and admitted, but his blood work showed he had a low sodium level, and the focus became that because he has diabetes insipidus.

J.P. is discharged from the hospital just in time for Christmas.

While we were working to stabilize his sodium, the vomiting stopped, and J.P. was discharged.

But the problem wasn’t resolved, and the vomiting happened again. We tried to manage it as an outpatient, and more tests were done, including an upper-GI series to see if he was having increased reflux.

The study showed some evidence of reflux, but nothing out of the ordinary.

We were back in the hospital for the weekend before Christmas, but the doctors felt that J.P. was constipated from the barium used in the upper GI.

The problem was resolved, and J.P. had not had any further vomiting issues, so we were discharged again.

A few weeks ago, we started to notice J.P. seemed to be retaining more fluid, and the periodic vomiting started again.

This time, it was just before a follow-up appointment with J.P.’s endocrinologist. We had blood work done for him, and we found out his eosinophils were high. Eosinophils are a type of white blood cell.

The endocrinologist felt we should contact J.P.’s primary doctor to have him investigate it further. We immediately saw J.P.’s doctor, who did more blood work. The results showed some abnormalities, but things were trending better.

We decided to watch it and repeat blood work in a couple of weeks, but the vomiting started again, which led to another appointment with the gastroenterologist and some changes in his medications.

We also finally got J.P.’s doctors to check the shunt during an outpatient hospital visit that happened earlier this week.

We were relieved to learn that J.P.’s shunt is working properly, but I think I feel like we’re between a rock and a hard place. While there was relief, I was a bit disappointed to now be left with no clear clue as to what’s causing the periodic vomiting and congestion.

We’ve talked again with J.P.’s doctors, and we may now have a roundtable discussion with his doctors and specialists to see what to do next.

I’m impressed that we even have the chance to get everyone together in one room for something like that. It’s just one more reason why we’re glad to be part of the Coordinated Care for Kids program at Florida Hospital for Children.

Please pray that we can find the path to some answers to get J.P. over these issues.