April Clinical trial visit

A little information: Luke is getting continuous feeds about 20 hours a day. I was sure that once he started getting continuous feeds that he would really start gaining weight. When he was getting the bolus feeds in his stomach he usually threw up one or two of those a day. All those wasted calories were now staying in and I figured it would allow him to grow. Well I was wrong. After several trials with different calorie concentrations we were right back where we started....40 calories per ounce and just maintaining his weight. I talked to Dr. D (Clinical trial Dr) about him not gaining weight. She talked to Dr. A (Gastrointestinal Clinical Trial Dr) and they decided we would have a special meeting when we came on Thursday.

Normal kids his age need 850 calories per day to GAIN weight. Luke is getting around 1100 every day and just maintaining his weight. Any less and he loses weight. We can't change his formula concentration anymore because he is maxed out and don't want to overload his kidneys. Plus one thing I didn't think about that Dr. D said was when we start weaning his formula and Luke has to start eating....All he is going to have time for is to eat. If he has to eat 1100 calories a day then he won't have time for anything else.

I scoured through the boxes of papers we have for Luke and tried to find any test that we have had done on Luke and took them to the clinical trial appointment. We sat down and talked about him, past symptoms and current. Dr. A was very thorough. We talked and decided to run a bunch of labs and get a belly x-ray. We will be doing growth hormone studies, pancreatic studies, blood count, electrolyte labs, kidney and liver function test, and allergy tests. Some of this stuff has already been done but it has been around 2 years so a lot can change in 2 years. He started him on a new reflux medication. There is talk of doing a "scope" on him again-which is a video camera looking at the insides of his digestive system but that is only if nothing else is found. There are some other options available but again they are future things. I will wait to discuss them until we decide to do them.

So for the time being we are "on hold" with the clinical trial. They liked to say "deviating from protocol." Again I struggle with "I hope they find something wrong vs I don't want anything to be wrong." Finding a diagnosis would give us something to treat but then that mean he has something and no mom wants their child to have a disease or syndrome or disorder.

The trip was great. Weather was good on the way up and decent on the way home. We had some rain on the way back but nothing hard and not more than 20 or 30 minutes. On the way up to Kansas City we stopped and saw my last primary from work. I loved getting to see her mom and snuggle with her. She has gotten so big and chubby (which is good for preemies)! We ate at our favorite Italian restaurant and Luke enjoyed a plate of cannoli cream. In the morning we went back to our favorite restaurant and Luke drank some coffee creamer. Yes...coffee creamer. He wanted to try it so I let him. Calories are calories!

Will keep updated as we find out results from the study. As of right now we still have our next appointment on May 15th.