Everything New

Some may remember that I had mentioned I had some exciting news about several things. Well, I figured I should jump on here and share it. The first subject, and most exciting, is Landon's development.

Two days shy of being 9 months old, Landon is now: clapping, following the command to "clap" when someone says "clap your hands" or "yay", waving bye-bye appropriately, getting up on hands and knees to crawl and rocking back and forth (but not quite crawling yet), scooting on his bottom to nearby objects, pulling up on objects and standing on his knees, imitating "clicking" sounds with his tongue, imitating "kissing" noises, feeding himself using a pincer grasp, and finally rolling over well enough in both directions that he changes positions in his crib overnight. He is also starting to experiment more with babbling. He was starting to babble in early Decemeber before his last surgery, but then it just stopped and hadn't picked back up. Lately, we're starting to hear him putting consonant and vowel sounds together again. Yay Landon!

As far as the other exciting news, we are traveling to the St. Louis area on Tuesday to see another new specialist named Dr. Davis. She specializes in using a hollistic approach, a combination of Eastern and Western medicine. In other words, she looks at the big picture and makes sure that the body is balanced and functioning how it should be, but also believes in using Western medicine when and to the extent necessary. She will be conducting a 2 hour interview on Landon's health and medical history and then doing some screening. We will also be doing a stool study in the near future. Several Hirschsprung's parents that I've met in support groups have had success using this type of treatment approach and have been able to turn their child's health around by keeping a balance in the intestines. I'm really excited to meet Dr. Davis and have high hopes that she will be able to do great things for Landon.

I'm hoping that the stool study is going to be the key to solving this complex puzzle, otherwise known as Landon's health. As most already know, Landon went in to cardiac arrest when he was 6 days old from overwhelming infection caused by (Hirschsprung's associated) enterocolitis. The reason that it caught everyone off guard, even when Hirschsprung's had been mentioned as a possibility as to why he was having the issues that he had, is that enterocolitis very, very rarely develops anywhere near as quickly as it did for Landon, and it is even more rare for it to become deadly in such a short period of time. So the question has always been- why Landon? Why did it develop and progress as quickly as it did for him? I've always had a hunch. I went in for an induction on June 28th. I was in labor for over 2 full days- the whole time I was receiving antibiotics every few hours. It is known that antibiotics kill all bacteria in their path- both good and bad. So basically, when you use antibiotics, you wipe out the flora (good bacteria) in your intestines. I believe that for those 2 days that I was in labor with IV antibiotics pumping through my system, Landon's flora was being completely eliminated. Then, once he turned into a birth position where he would no longer descend, Landon had to be delivered via caesarian- also known to disrupt/prevent establishing a balance of flora. And last, but not least, since Landon was too sick to eat from birth and I was never able to produce a single drop of milk from pumping (even with the help of 2 lactation consultants), even though Landon was technically "breastfed" in that he wasn't receiving formula, he actually did not eat anything for the first two weeks of his life. So there was another knock to the balance in his intestines.

Based on everything I've mentioned above, I believe that enterocolitis was practically welcomed into his intestines and had the perfect environment to thrive and quickly take over. In order to manage the enterocolitis, we have had to use the antibiotic Flagyl, to kill the bad bacteria that quickly takes over in Landon's intestines. The only problem with that, is that in the meantime, the Flagyl is also even further preventing Landon from developing flora in his intestines to balance and naturally fight off the chronic/recurrent infections. We already use a very strong, adult strength dose of probiotics to try to replinish the good bacteria in his intestines. Once we do the stool study, we will have specific information on what the levels of both good and bad bacteria are, what types, and what dosages of the specific strands that he needs in order to bring his intestines up to a "normal" point. Then, in May, once we attempt to take him off of the maintanence Flagyl once again, if he has an adequate amount of flora in his intestines, and if we are able to turn his intestines into a very unwelcoming environment for the bad bacteria to grow and take over, we could finally be on a path for a normal life for him without frequent rectal irrigations and antibiotics.

I could be completely wrong about everything, but I'm willing to risk the time and the money to possibly be closer to finding a solution. I will update next week with news about what Dr. Davis has to say. I hope everyone has a Happy Easter!