Upper GI Series & Gastric Emptying Scan 30 Dec

Radioactive breast milk

 We survived the day! It went a lot smoother than I though it would, since they expected to fast an infant for 4 hours prior to the test. We started the day out with a 9 AM Gastric Emptying scan. Pacen drank radioactive breast milk for 10 minutes. He took 1.5oz total in the time and his belly was filled to the brim, which does not seem like much, but when you are tiny like he is, it is actually quite a bit!

The scan took 1 hour. Pacen was swaddled onto a backboard and he slept the entire hour. The machine took a photo of his stomach every 30 seconds to check for refluxing, aspirations and gastric emptying time. The radiology tech said that 50% or more of emptying in one hour is normal and after the test the computer would calculate the percentage of emptying for Pacen. After 120 photos, he showed reflux in about 6 of them, and he didn't mention seeing any aspirations. He also emptied 69% of his stomach. We will get the final results of this test once Dr. Santos calls us for another appointment.

The next appointment was scheduled for 2 PM, but they bumped us up an hour to 1 PM.  The radiology tech was telling Pacen that she was going to take pictures of his belly and he smiled and cooed at her. She said he was the sweetest baby, I will have to agree, he was a trooper today! Pacen laid on his back and they took a picture of his belly empty (see X-Ray looking photo below) and then she held his legs down, I held his arms up and fed him the barium drink so the radiologist could get the series going. It took about 5-10 minutes to get all of the photos of him swallowing and the barium going into his stomach. It was pretty cool to watch it live, and I almost wish I could have gotten it on video on my phone.

After the appointments were over, we buzzed over to Tara Thai and enjoyed some satay and soup!

Upper GI series before barium

Gastric Emptying Scan

Full belly (gastric emptying scan)

Emptying belly (top blob)
Full bowel (bottom blob)

Our next appointment is 4 January, a weight check with Dr. Harwood. I will update again then!