So Monday night was going to be mine and Jeremiah’s first night to sit down and relax and actually spend a little bit of time with each other since we started doing upgrades in our house. We put Matthew to bed around 8pm and he was fine, and we sat on the couch and started to watch “Little Rascals”. About 9:30pm Matthew woke up screaming. It was a sad and scary scream. We ran in there and he was inconsolable. He was clutching his lower abdomen and crying uncontrollably. It took about 20 minutes to calm him down enough to tell us that his belly was hurting. He would whimper for about 5 minutes, then have a bout of pain and start screaming again. I got dressed and prepared to take him to the hospital. Jeremiah was concerned about transporting him if he was in so much pain, so he called for an ambulance.
The ambulance arrived somewhere around 10pm, they checked him out and loaded him up. On the way to the hospital he would be okay for a few minutes, then start crying, then he threw up. After throwing up he fell asleep for much of the ride until he woke up whimpering right before we arrived.
They wheeled him into the hospital. At this point, like many kids do, he started acting like nothing was wrong. He became bright eyed and bushy tailed and I started feeling dumb for bringing him in. They got him in a room, took his vitals and got him snuggled in the hospital bed in front of the TV. He was okay for a while until he started crying again and curling up, then threw up again. He would have these waves and in between he’d be fine. The doctor came in and explained it could either be something small, or intussusception (telescoping intestine). The way she explained the latter seemed like exactly what he was going through. A medical website says this:
Infants and children with intussusception have intense abdominal pain, which often begins very suddenly and causes loud, anguished crying causing the child to draw the knees up. The pain is usually intermittent, but recurs and may become stronger. As the pain eases, the child may stop crying for a while and seem to be feeling better.
The doctors had an xray done, then we had to wait a while for a radiologist to come in since it was after midnight by that time, and they only have them on-call. During this time he had 3 or 4 more episodes of pain & vomiting. A while later, we had the sonogram done and waited to hear back. At around 3am, the doctor came back and said it didn’t look like intussusception. The sonogram showed nothing wrong with his intestines, but the xrays showed lots of poo. She said that by itself didn’t explain the vomiting, but it could be a virus on top of the bowel issues. She sent us home with a prescription for zofran (anti-vomiting medication) which they’d given him earlier to stop the throwing up. She told us to buy some Miralax (though I decided to buy Pedialax since it’s just saline laxative rather than the medication. I figured if it didn’t help I could go buy the Miralax), some sort of juice and some gatorade to help “loosen” things up and give him electrolytes.
We got home around 4am, hoping Matthew would sleep in. No such luck, he was up just after 8 in the morning. Tired and dragging, we made our way to Walmart and bought the things on the list, and headed home.
Since then, he’s been feeling much better. Not that everyone wants to hear about bowel movements, but in the last 2 days he’s had a few, the latest one being pretty … decent. ;P I’ll continue the fiber and laxative filled diet so that this doesn’t happen again. He’s still telling me his belly hurts a few times a day, but I think in another day or two he’ll feel just fine. 
I appreciate any messages, texts and calls I’ve gotten asking about his well-being and sending luck and prayers. I am glad it seems to be only that he’s backed up and doesn’t recur. Even though it turned out to be a small deal, there’s nothing worse than to see your child suffer like he was that night.
That’s scary! I am glad he has started having bowel movements! And super glad it was nothing worse!
My youngest son wasn’t able to drink milk for the longest time because it always seemed to constipate him. We had to give him benefiber to loosen him up and absolutely no milk other than soy milk!
Oh that sounds so scary! And so stressful! And it sounds like you were so calm throughout all of this which is really important but not something that I can say that I would have been able to be if I had been that situation. I am pleased to hear that he is on the road to recovery.
How scary!! Glad he is okay
Aug 24, 2011 • 09:54 pm