**(This post is long, detailed, and not for the weak stomached.)
This weekend did NOT go as intended. I "planned" to do nothing, other than attend my friends 30th birthday party. It was finally a free weekend. We went to the party saturday night, had fun, everything was fine. Skip to...
5:35 Sunday morning. Everything was not fine. Mac woke up crying so I assumed he was hungry. I made him his bottle and he refused. I didn't think much of it because we thought he had been teething last week and Tylenol was our go to soother. So I gave him the Tylenol and he threw it up. This began a 6 1/2 hour cycle of crying, restlessness, discomfort, vomiting, increasingly lethargic and periods of being unconsolable. During this time he refused two bottles and if you know Mac you know he doesn't turn down food. I was concerned that he was going to get dehydrated because of all the vomiting so I called my Mom (and yes even after having his last full bottle Saturday night at 6:30pm we was throwing up green fluid). She said Pedialite and with that I went to our awesome neighbors door and had them sit with Mac while I ran to CVS for Pedialite. He actually drank 2 ounces of the Pedialite and then promptly threw it all up. I called Mom back and she said call the Nurse. I did and 40 minutes later we were on our way to the Emergency Room. Jimmy was in Thorndale playing softball so he got a phone call to meet me at Dell Children's.
Once we got to the ER we had to wait about 40 minutes before we got a room and got to see a Doctor. Once the ER Doctor saw us and I retold my story which prompted him to check Mac's diaper and it had blood in it. With that he was out the door calling in the "on call" Radiologist. He came back in and explained that Mac had an Intussusception where the intestine telescopes or folds into itself and blocks the passage of waste. So when Mac was throwing up it was fluids that were backing up from his intestine. We were going to Radiology so they could do a procedure called an air enema where they would pump his colon full of air trying to get it to "unstick". If that didn't work, emergency surgery.
It didn't work. The Radiologist tried for almost 45 minutes. Mac had to have surgery. They had to put him under. They went in through his belly button with a scope and made two other small incisions on his side for the other instruments and pulled the intestine out of itself. Thank you God. The processes if the laproscopic procedure didn't work were much more involved.
Mac is fine now. We are home as of 8pm tonight.
Intussusception usually follows a previous illness and Mac was sick last weekend with a virus, this was one of the flags for the Doctor. It is fairly common in children under the age of two and the doctors were really not worried they just needed to correct it as soon as possible.
I don't know how I managed to not completely fall apart. I knew I had to stay semi composed so I could listen to the instructions and explainations and just be able to know what was about to happen. But seeing my BIG six month old baby on an adult size hospital bed in the ER so sick that he didn't even move when they put in his IV was tragically heartbreaking. Nothing up to this point in my life could have ever prepared me for the heart wrenching, completely helpless feeling that came over me. It hit me so hard I literally thought I was going to throw up and then it didn't leave. That feeling lingered. I got up every hour when the nurses came in to check on him but there was still nothing I could physically, as his Mom, do for him. Jimmy was awesome and if it hadn't been for him I would have lost it. I found my strength in his. And knowing that so many people were lifting us up in prayer. Just like Calvo said in his text to me "God is good". And he truely is.
Mac after surgery.
His heart bandage.
Getting his appetite back.
Starting to feel better.
Playing on the bed after he got to be disconnected from the saline!
Headed home. He was feeling better, just not smiling.
Pictures from June 26, 2010
Yesterday we stayed home to play and rest. He needed to catch up on some good sleep since he didn't feel well this weekend. You can tell he is back to his old self in these pictures. We had so much fun playing! I got out some new toys from the baby showers that he is old enough to play with now and he dove right in. We played with his wooden blocks and his stacking ring set. I stacked the blocks and he knocked them down! I think we make a great team! haha. He just chewed on the rings, he did watch me stack them on the holder but he was content just chewing on them.
