The Bravest Girl I Know

Most of you know that our sweet Annie has had her share of medical issues. Never anything life threatening, but plenty to keep us worried. Earlier this year she had an endoscopy and from that we received some unexpected biopsy results that indicated her problems might be more serious. Specifically there were some indicators present that can indicate Crohn's Disease or colitis. Over the past few months she has had lots of tests and while we were able to rule out a number of other things, all of the tests for Crohn's and colitis were inconclusive. Her weight gain had stalled out over the last nine or so months so her GI doctor decided a colonoscopy was in order.

When we first told her what was happening about a week before the procedure we finished by asking her if she was scared. Her response? "No, I just want Dr. Montes to figure out why I can't gain any pounds." OK then.

On the way to the hospital she was pretty quiet. Bryan asked if she was worried or scared and she simply replied no. Once we arrived she got changed into the hospital PJ's, watched Super Why in our waiting room and then went out to the area filled with toys and played. She and Bryan played air hockey, and she found a little bike thing that she rode around until it was time to talk to the anesthesiologist. The whole time she was calm and mellow, like she was an old pro. One thing I love about Phoenix Children's is that they allow the parents to go back to the procedure room and stay until the patient falls asleep. We told her good bye, kissed her on the forehead, she fell asleep and that was that.

In recovery Annie kept asking when she could go home. She drank some apple juice and a little later they released us. She fell asleep on the way home but by two hours after the procedure you never would have known that anything unusual had happened that day.

That day the doctor told us everything had looked good, that he saw no signs of Crohn's and that he expected the biopsies to come back normal. Today he called and confirmed that all of her results were normal. There are no words to express how relieved I am. She will know go on an appetite stimulant and see how that works. Our fingers are crossed that its effective