Now that Halloween and Bonfire night are behind us and Christmas is fast approaching, there’s finally a little time to look back and reflect on the start of the new academic year.  September seems like a lifetime ago and yet was a busy month with appointments right, left and centre that have had a lasting impact on decisions about M’s long-term care.  We had appointments with GOSH, a new community paediatrician, M’s OT and with CAMHS; and I needed to be the thread that linked them all to ensure that M remained at the centre of their focus and that all agencies were working together to provide the best support they could.

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The OT’s review was everything we needed it to be and she has already started going into school once a week to work with M on his handwriting skills.  The clinical psychologist he meets with fortnightly through CAMHS is slowly building a relationship with him and gently pushing him to talk about how he feels about life with EGID and the frustrations he experiences.  As for the new community paediatrician, who was recommended by our local hospital, well, lets just say we won’t be rushing to meet with her again.  Her complete lack of understanding of his condition was glaringly evident as she suggested that regular toileting and a sticker chart were the answers to all our problems.  How I refrained from saying something very rude is nothing short of a miracle!

The most important of all these, for us, was our regular appointment at GOSH with the gastro team charged with M’s care.  The restricted diet and increased medications over the last 3 years have not brought about the results we’ve been aiming for and M continues to be symptomatic a lot of the time.  We have become increasingly concerned about his emotional well-being as he struggles with the impact of EGID and multiple food allergies on his daily routines and I was determined to come away from that appointment with a tangible plan in place.  Despite our best efforts with the challenging treatment suggested by the local consultant leading into the summer, our worst fears were realised when the registrar told us that M appeared to be impacted again and we would need another course of fairly heavy-duty laxatives to empty his bowel.

That led into a lengthy discussion about where we’re headed and what the most sensible next steps for M’s care are.  Short-term plans are all well and good, but we now need a long-term care plan put in place.  He agreed that we can’t keep limping from one appointment to the next and promised to discuss M’s current situation with our consultant.  Medical terms such as “pellet study“, “elemental diet” and “manometry” were bandied around and I am glad that, thanks to the support from other FABED families, I have a reasonable layman’s understanding of what all these terms actually mean.

We left the hospital feeling that we were beginning to making some progress in dealing with the problems that continue to dog M’s every step and a short-term plan that would start to deal with the current impaction issue.  The longer term decisions would be discussed both internally and with us before anything was settled on for definite.  A follow-up appointment with the consultant herself was made and our step was just a teeny bit lighter as we felt our concerns were being heard and addressed.

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However, since that day, over 7 weeks ago, I have spoken to GOSH at least once a week and almost daily over the past 10 days.  The improvements expected haven’t happened and so the decision has been made to admit M into the hospital for further testing.  We need to understand whether his bowel is working as it should or not as that will give us a clue as to the direction we need to head.  We have also agreed with his consultant that the diet and medicines just aren’t helping his hugely allergic colon and so have made the decision to remove all food from his diet and follow the elemental diet via NG-tube for a while.  This should give his bowel and body some much-needed time to rest and recuperate, something I believe it so desperately needs.