Mile 23

When he was almost 3, in October 2022, Demani began to experience particularly difficult abdominal pain. Cierra brought him to Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, near her home. At the time, it was thought to be constipation, but about six months later, Demani had another particularly bad episode. To help determine the problem, Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital Pediatric Gastroenterologist Dr. Aimee Caillet consulted with a pediatric pancreatitis expert, Dr. Russ Zwiener, gastroenterologist at Manning Family Children’s.

New imaging showed that Demani had anatomical abnormalities of both his bile duct and pancreatic duct (anomalous pancreaticobiliary junction or ABPJ), as well as a dilated bile duct which, Dr. Zwiener said, was due to a choledochal cyst in the child’s bile duct. The decision was made to perform an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) to allow for better drainage of his bile and pancreatic ducts.  The ERCP was completed in mid-December 2023, with a follow-up in February of last year to remove the congenital cyst.

Demani was quickly on the road to recovery, and is now doing great thanks to the collaboration between our two children’s hospitals, and expert care he received from both the Our Lady of the Lake and Manning Family Children’s teams.