Monday, September 15, 2008

Show me where it hurts..

UPDATE! Will slept through the night! This is huge. Not wanting to give up his cherished sick status, Will downplayed his recovery, but we can see it on his face. Huzzah!

Will, and by the transitive property of child illnesses, all of us, have been suffering for a few days now. Will started complaining about vague tummy aches Thursday. Of course, that is a pretty non-specific, and out kids are getting pretty expert at claiming such illnesses as grounds for staying up late, or getting a special night-time drink (known as Daddy Juice (aka Ricola in hot water).
But Will's aches seemed more genuine, and more pressing. We began to push for more details. One that came out was that he hadn't pooped in sometime. He was up crying and complaining for several hours. I looked up some info about constipation on the web, and came to conclusion that the traditional solutions would be too slow. Fiber is great, don't get me wrong. But we didn't have days for a cure. He was up and screaming every half hour or so. The interwebs suggested that the disimpaction was necessary. For that, suppositories are Step One.
Here is a surprising fact. Will doesn't like being administered a suppository. The first one was a bit of a surprise, so I got off easy.
When that didn't work, I took Will to the pediatrician Friday, and after a pretty quick once over, the doctor recommended we continue with those, and if that doesn't work... advance to the next step.
But one suppository (and by one I mean 1/3 of one) was not enough, the 2nd and 3rd over this loooooong weekend were not so much fun. This time, Carly was willing to do the dirty deed. With friends like these who needs enemas?
Days later, Will is showing some improvement. He is easily distracted during the day, and is sleeping a couple hours at a time at night (better, but not ideal). I set up their CD player with Thomas the Annoying Tank Engine on repeat, so when he wakes up, he can distract himself (rather than wake us). This worked reasonably well. Tonight, I administered a stimulant laxative (also on in the posterior). He was ready for it this time, and his screams were both ear piercing, and personal "Please Daddy don't do that." Unfair.
This, finally appears to have done something. So far, no complaints from him, he appears to be asleep! Let's hope this does it. Needless to day, we are still going to push liquids (pear juice), prunes, and other high fiber foods. Hopefully this will do it.

4 Comments:

At 9:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sylvia said her longest sentence ever while I was trying to change a bandage on her hand, "No Mommy! Go away!"

-Karen

 
At 12:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The pun "With friends like that who needs enemas?" absolves you from the too much information of this post. :}

what about good old magnesium citrate?

lex

 
At 1:27 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

can kids drink Emergen-c? that has a ton of magnesium citrate in it, & tastes pretty good.
And (TMI warning) I deal with this by eating 3 or 4 apples in one day & then chewing sugary bubble gum the next day. This might not be too difficult to get a kid to do...
(I had no idea why the gum thing worked until someone pointed out that chewing motions stimulate the whole digestive system)(I don't know why the sugary thing, though).

 
At 12:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

no, emergen-c has magnesium carbonate in it. if it had mag cit, it wouldn't have quite the same popularity it now enjoys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_citrate

you might also try googling it to read the many highly entertaining testimonials.

lex

 

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