A Poopy Answer

We took Anthony to his pediatrician today to ask about the poopy situation. He feels that Anthony may have had a virus a few weeks ago that wiped out the lactase enzymes in his digestive tract. As you can probably guess from the name, lactase enzymes break down lactose (milk sugar). If all of those enzymes are missing, you are esentially lactose intolerant . Because the pediatrician felt it was a virus that wiped out these enzymes, he explained that Anthony will probably only be lactose intolerant until the enzymes have the chance to "bounce back". Anthony will use a lactose free milk for a week or so and then we'll try to bring a little bit of dairy product back into his diet. In the meantime, we'll add a lactobacillus supplement in his diet in the hopes that it will help the enzymes come back (better and stronger).

I hope this is all we're dealing with! This is going to be an easy fix. We just wait for Anthony's body to heal itself...no worrying about allergies, cooking, etc. Please pray that this is the issue at hand!

I forgot this, too: the tube in Anthony's right ear is almost out. I'm hoping that when we visit the ENT in February that she will say this is no big deal and that the tube doesn't need to be replaced. The hope was that the tubes would remain in place for at least a year and June 12 will mark one year since the mastoiditis incident, so we're not quite to the one-year mark there. We'll find out in early February at the ENT visit what's going on for sure.

Anthony will return to day care on Monday, with his special milk in tow.

Stay tuned for more developments in Anthony-land!

Love, Laurie, Mark and Anthony

Coming up in Anthony-land:
TONIGHT: Dinner with Maw Maw, Paw Paw and Maw Maw Peck at their house
Saturday: mass and dinner with Nana and Grandpa
Sunday: probably a relaxing day at home!
Monday: back to day care!