Came for Fever, Stayed for Constipation

We are home from the hospital! We came home Thursday, hooray! 

Sorry to leave you with a bit of a cliffhanger there…now for the rest of the story: When last I posted we were trying to figure out why Jacob’s stomach hurt so much, it had started Sunday (or maybe earlier) but his pain had escalated while we were in the hospital. At one point he was on morphine and oxycodone (pain killers) alternating every 2 hours. And he’d still be in pain; he’d wake up in the night screaming because his tummy hurt so much. The doctors ran every possible test and looked at everything. They checked for a blood clot, reverse blood flow in the liver, kidney stones, air in the lining of his intestine, appendicitis, pancreatitis, a possible gallbladder problem…all of which came up negative. Relieving and frustrating at the same time.

Jacob & Scott playing ‘Star Wars’ on the X-box in the hospital. That’s a hot pack on Jacob’s tummy, it helped with the pain.

To investigate these possible problems Jacob had both an ultrasound and an x-ray (well, two ultrasounds—regular and Doppler, and three x-rays, to be precise).  The x-rays showed a lot of stool in his intestine (yes, this is another post about poop. I’m used to it now, are you?) We were surprised given that he had such severe diarrhea for the last month (see previous posts where we thought he had a tummy bug). Finally it was concluded that Jacob is constipated. And he was getting backed up while he was still having the diarrhea. I did not know that that was possible. Think of a clog in the drain of your sink; the water can still go around it until it just gets so big that the drain gets plugged. Same thing can happen to a persons insides. And it was caused by two different medications he was taking (as best we can tell). The Vincristine (chemo med) was plugging him up while Dexamethasone (steroid) was causing diarrhea. We had a laxative prescribed for him when he first started the Vincristine, but we stopped because he had such bad diarrhea. Seemed logical, right? Don’t need a laxative when you’ve got diarrhea.

And so the answer to the big stomach-pain mystery: constipation. The thing that had the doctors scratching their heads wondering what could be causing this severe pain. Yep, it’s good, old-fashioned, run-of-the-mill, don’t-need-surgery, constipation. We ruled out every other possibility. Oh we also learned that he has rhino-virus too. Never heard of it? You’ve had it, it’s just the fancy way of saying ‘common cold.’

Nothing heals quite like kisses from little sister. She was so excited to see him.

As I was talking with one of the doctors, Dr. Kaza, she said that she had just been so concerned, she refused to miss anything or write it off as simply constipation. But turns out, that was it. And I’m grateful that she worked so hard and explored every possibility—those are the kind of people you want caring for and treating your kids, right? She told me she was thinking about Jacob and trying to figure out his pain when she went home at night. As a parent, there is nothing more comforting to hear when you’re child’s in pain. I’m really grateful for Primary Children’s Hospital and their staff.

So, what began with the ER and an ambulance ended with constipation and the common cold. At any rate, we are so glad to be home again. Jacob is on a laxative and two stool softeners (“mushers and pushers” as one nurse said) and they seem to be doing the trick. It’s a slow process, but I think Jacob is getting cleaned out and beginning to feel better. Which is good, because tomorrow he starts phase two of chemotherapy. Here we go, I guess…