John Update

We spent 6 hours at Riley Children's Hospital on Saturday -- Carolyn, John and I -- because John's abdominal pain had still not been diagnosed, and because now he had a fever. His cardiologist had warned against complacency with unexplained fevers; risk of an infection traveling to the heart is still elevated. Our family doctor's office had referred us to Riley Emergency on Saturday afternoon. The doctor at the family practice wanted a CAT scan of his abdomen looking for "growths" or tumors.

Karen watched Emmalee while the rest of us went to Riley. Carolyn and I were pretty sick while driving to Riley. It was such a heart-sickening sense of deja vu.

But, thankfully, we emerged 6 hours later feeling better. It was a rough ordeal for John -- another blood draw, another X-Ray ... but we at last had some answers. Big sigh of relief. And a bit of a chuckle and shaking of the head in disbelief.

As it turns out, John was just feeling poopy. Did you know -- preschoolers can get constipated?

With John's gastroenteritis (stomach flu) in March, and his sinus infection, he was on various medicines over the past couple of months. These medicines, and the original stomach flu itself, messed up his system. It disturbed the normal flow, shall we say. An adult can articulate, and
even diagnose, the problem. Not so a small child.

How could we go this long without knowing it? Because he continued to go to the bathroom -- #1 and #2 -- every day. Did you know that was humanly possible -- to be stopped up and still go? Apparently it fooled the doctors at our family practice. It took an abdominal X-Ray to reveal the cause.

I was sure I would see the black-and-white image of some ingested toy causing all this problem. A Robin Hood action figure firmly wedged in the appendix. Something like that. But no, just a backlog.

Treatable. Unthreatening. Uncomfortable, but mundane. Whew, big sigh of relief. Thanks for all who showed their concern for John. Hopefully he's on the road to feeling better.