Esophagitis...

Matthew has been officially diagnosed with Esophagitis which means he has a raw and inflamed throat and stomach caused by the reflux. Unfortunately what we were hoping would be a 2 day stay in the hospital will now be a one week stay. He will not be allowed to take a bottle until Monday and then they'll ease him back into eating to see if the reflux kicks back in. They will keep the feeding tube in his intestine (TPT line) so he'll continue to get nutrients, but his belly won't be getting fed and he'll think he's hungry.

They took Matthew back off the Zantac he was just prescribed on Tuesday and they decided to double his Prevacid dosage instead. We had a lot of questions when we heard this because we've been told for the past 4 weeks that Matthew was already on his max dosage. Apparently after consulting with the hospital pharmacist his doctors decided they could double his dosage for a short period of time to get the acid under control. However, they're going to start monitoring his liver function because high doses of Prevacid over an extended period of time can cause liver damage. We don't know what the right thing is so we're going to trust his Doctors and pray that this is the right move for him.

Things continue to be frantic in the PICU. There is still a flurry of active around the little girl we wrote about yesterday but she does seem to be a little more stable today. We also met a mom who told us about sliding on black ice and getting into an accident with her 2 young children in her car. The little boy and girl are both in the PICU with serious injuries. We get tears in our eyes just walking down the hall now.