A two-fer today, since the last couple of days sort of melded into one. Yesterday (Saturday), Timmy's difficulty with his pooping continued (for the 7th day in a row, he hadn't crapped). His tummy was starting to feel hard and we could feel a lump in there, so we opted to take him in to the hospital in Schweinfurt. Normally, we would've just taken him into the health clinic on post, but it's closed on weekends.
Any way, we take him in there to the pediatric ward and a young doctor looks him over and decides he needs an enema. Timmy wasn't too happy about it, and it didn't yield much progress any way. About a half-hour of grunts and groans and squeezing later, the doctor decided Timmy needed a bigger enema, and so it was done. Still, nothing. Lots of poop-colored water, but nothing solid. By this time, Timmy had been squeezing for almost 45 minutes straight and he was exhausted- so much so that he was falling asleep on the examination table.
The doctor decided Timmy needed to stay the night, in the hopes that the enemas had loosened things up enough for him to eventually poop. We went through all the paperwork to get Timmy admitted to the hospital and once the doctor and nurse left the examination room, Timmy actually got something solid out. Solid- with a capital 'S'. The lump he dropped had all the size and consistancy of a golf ball. Fortunately (or not), the paperwork had already gone through and we had committed to keeping Timmy in the hospital overnight.
This was when Daddy went home to fetch some clothes for all 3 of us as well as some snacks and the laptop. When I got back to the hospital, I found out that during the hour and a half I was gone, Timmy had actually vomited up all the juice Mommy had given him, plus some bits of food that I'd swear he hadn't eaten since Thursday. At this point, we were quite comfortable with our decision to stay at the hospital.
While filling out the paperwork, Mommy had checked the box requesting the chief pediatrician to attend to Timmy (a priveledge our health insurance provides for us) and he made his way into the hosptial around about 8:00. He did an examination of Timmy then gave him an ultrasound, showing us his large intestine chock-full of poop. There were a couple points where you could see the large, hard chunks that were twice the diameter of the rest of the intestine. The doctor decided Timmy needed help passing his crap, so on went the rubber glove.
To his credit, the doctor was right. The size of the stuff that came out couldn't have been passed by an air compressor, let alone a baby's intestinal lining. Timmy was definately not happy, but it got the job done. By the time the doctor was finished, Timmy was exhausted, but his belly was significantly smaller and mushier.
Timmy slept rather well last night.
This morning when we all woke up (Timmy in his hosptial crib and Mommy and Daddy crammed on a 1-person cot), Timmy had some more to pass. And more even later in the morning. This was a good sign, and we were hoping we'd be out of the hospital relatively early in the day. Unfortunately, this was not to be. As it turns out, we didn't even get to see the doctor until around 2:30 in the afternoon (All day we spent twiddling our thumbs and changing diapers). Even then, the doctor wanted to keep us there for observation, but we decided to come home instead.
Now, Timmy is napping upstairs and Mommy is making him some homemade chicken noodle soup. Hopefully his belly is feeling much better soon.
I don't have any pictures because I didn't bring a camera to the hospital, but you really don't want to see any of it any way- trust me.
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