Arran has an operation scheduled for February 7, 2001. They will be doing the Nissen Procedure although it will not be a full Nissen. This means that he will still be able to eat things by mouth and through his g-tube. We both met with the surgeon last Friday and he went into detail about what will be happening and how long he will be in the hospital and a lot of other things. He will be in the hospital for at least 3-5 days more than likely 5-7 days because he is so small and they will want to make sure that he is recovering. This was a really tough choice that we had to make and we are still praying that it was the right one.

Over the last week we have been in constant contact with Arran's doctors at UMMS. They are pushing to have a procedure done on him called a Nissen (spelling may be off) Procedure. This involves taking part of the muscles around the stomach and basically pilling them on top of the stomach to help strengthen that muscle in the hopes of preventing reflux. The problem with this that it will close off his esophagus. We really didn't want this procedure done and so we started to investigate other options. Our current understanding is that they now want to do a partial Nissen which will still allow him to eat some but hopefully not throw up as much. He will still need to have a g tube placed in his stomach where the bulk of his food will be given to him. Please pray that we are making the right decision. We will schedule an appointment with the surgeon soon and I'll give you more info when I get it.

In other news Arran just had his flu shot on Wednesday. He had no problems with it and didn't even really cry when he got it. He gave the nurse one of his most pitiful looks so she would feel guilty all day and one big fat tear rolled down his little cheek but that was it. I have heard horror stories about flu shots but we were really pleased with the way he made out.

Today we visited the Growth and Nutrition Specialists at UMMS and had Arran weighed in. He weighed 6 lb. and was not very happy at all about making the trip. He knows when we go to the doctors now even if it just for a check up and he is very unhappy to be there. Plus the car ride down to Baltimore stresses him out because he can't lay on his stomach in the car seat. We had a long discussion today about Arran lack of weight gain. Lately he has almost doubled his food intake. He now eats about 3-4 ounces or 70-80 ml per feed and he feeds about 6-7 times a day. With this increase of food intake and his decrease in reflux problems we expected to see a dramatic difference in weight gain. We did not and we were somewhat disappointed, the dr. was too. Nothing was really decided as to what we should do about this problem yet. Tomorrow his dr will speak with his GI dr and they may decide a course of action then. He will also be visiting his pediatrician next week for another weight check. Hopefully things will look better then.