Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Pyloric Stenosis












Well, there comes a time in every parents life where an emergency trip to the hospital will take place, for Erin and I that time came a short five weeks into parenthood. Always one to keep people on their toes, Jacob began vomiting early on last week and after it progressively got worse we decided to call his pediatrician on friday morning. No appointments were available for that day so they booked us for monday and told us to keep a close eye on him. We could have tried later on in the afternoon but we were supposed to go to my sister's wedding rehearsal. We called the pediatrician that saw him when Jacob was born and she got us in right away. She knew exactly what was happening when we explained his symptoms. Within half an hour we had a room reserved at a hospital and we were on our way for a sonogram to confirm the pediatrician's diagnosis. 
      The diagnosis was Pyloric Stenosis, which happens when the muscle that allows food to pass into the small intestine from the stomach grows too big and closes. The food is not able to pass and the only thing Jacob could do was vomit everything he ate. I KEPT TELLING HIM NOT TO DO SO MANY SIT UPS!
      Seriously though, for any parents or soon to be parents this could be a lethal condition that effects mostly first born male babies from 4-6 weeks of age. It is easily corrected by a short procedure and before the procedure was invented by a doctor in 1930 babies that had this eventually passed away.
      We were very lucky to have so many people praying for Jacob and for a great team of doctors that helped make him well again. Everybody says chicks dig scars, so Jacob is already even more of a chick magnet then he was before! YEA!

1 comment:

Fred Vanderbom said...

Congratulations for a really good PS story, and I'm sure Jacob will do well.
Too many parents are put through a hard time by doctors who fail to recognise the symptoms or take them seriously.
Btw, the surgery was discovered in 1911 and published a year later by a German, Conrad Ramstedt. But it took until after WW2 to get the mortality rate down to minimal levels, infection, shock and other complications being the problem.
Enjoy your son!