A Mother's Intuition...

We took Zac in for an Upper GI yesterday due to all of his Gastro issues. He vomits all the time and has severe constipation issues. After MONTHS of persistence, his pediatrician finally listened to me when I basically demanded that she have an Upper GI done.

Andy and Zac waiting at the Hospital Registration, he was pretty happy considering he had been fasting!

Andy got to wear the super cool Dalmatian apron while I got the football one, weird.

Zac was pretty easy-going throughout the process. He had to drink a bottle of barium so that it would show the contrast on the X-ray. Unfortunately, he didn't get to drink much of it and was getting pretty annoyed throughout the test. He still pulled through like a champ though!

The nurse looked at the x-ray machine with a look of shock. I looked at the screen and what I saw appeared to be two stomachs. I immediately asked, does Zac have a hernia? The radiologist said yep. Is it a Hiatal Hernia I asked. He replied that he wasn't sure, it could be another type as well. I asked if it would correct itself, to which he replied that we would need to meet with a surgeon, as it was quite a larger hernia. The nurse (Rose, who was AMAZING) said that in 40 years of doing this, she has never seen anything like this in a child.

Rose then let Zac choose between 3 stuffed animals for being such a good patient!

My Ped called later in the day.... The Diagnosis: A Hiatal Hernia

Duh... I have been telling her this since November. I just knew that he did not have reflux - we dealt with that with Hayden and I knew this was different. I had briefly heard of a hiatal hernia when we were trying to diagnose Hayden as a baby which is why I thought this might be what Zac has. We are switching pediatricians... She couldn't even give me a good surgeon referral! I am so frustrated that I didn't push more. This is the cause for Zac's poor weight gain, vomiting, constipation, weird gurgling noises in his chest, inability to consume more than 4 ounces at a time, etc...


I wish I would have taken a picture of the x-ray screen, not sure if they would have let me, but it was incredible to look at. The picture above is a drawing of what his hernia looks like. The bottom part is the stomach, the tube coming down is the esophagus, and protruding out the top on the right is the hernia. Basically, a portion of his stomach is protruding through a tear in the diaphragm and up into his chest cavity. Zac's looked to be about the size of his stomach, this is very large for one of these. Basically, anything that goes into his esophagus goes straight to the hernia and then passes, or doesn't pass, to the stomach. Zac had an episode last week which landed us in urgent care because he was vomiting constantly without holding a thing down. We have now learned that the hernia was possibly extra inflamed at that time and nothing was emptying into the stomach. Poor little man...


We have an appointment with a surgeon at Phoenix children's Hospital for May 15th, hopefully we will have more answers and explanations at that point.

Moral of the story: A mother's intuition is always right!

How it will be fixed: Without having talked to the surgeon yet, my basic understanding is that they will take the herniated portion of the stomach and push it back through the hole. They will then repair the hole as well as reattaching the esophagus to the stomach more securely.