The Poop Wars...

I'm in the trenches, let me tell you! If you're eating breakfast, skip this blog.

Miss Maddy was up at 2:30 Thursday night, screaming her poor little head off. I tried positioning her for poop, rubbing her tummy, and nothing. Nada. Zip. She finally passed a little bit of (very stinky) gas around 4:00 and collapsed into an uneasy sleep. I mixed up some Miralax and gave it to her while she slept, then went back to bed to try to rest for a couple of hours. My head was killing me ~ like a 7-8 ~ by this point, but I'm out of the "good meds" for the month, so no more until the 15th for me. Anyway, that's neither here nor there ~ it just made dealing with the screaming a little more difficult than usual. (Okay, a LOT more difficult!) DH got up at 5, just as I was finally drifting off. His alarms (all FOUR of them! ACK!) woke me right up, but he managed to sleep through them just fine. lol I got him up with coffee at 5:15. Figured I might as well, since I was awake, anyway! lol

The rain had stopped, so he went ahead to work. I figured he'd probably have a pretty short day (I was right ~ he was home by 2:00). I went back down for an hour or so, then got up to check Maddy when I heard her stirring at about 7. Still no poop, but she was in a better mood.

Her nurse arrived for the day at 7:45 (traffic was a mess from the earlier rain) and she decided to try to manually remove the poop ~ it was visible, but hard as a rock, and apparently stuck in M's rectum. Poor babycakes ~ I helped with the holding and comforting of the poor child while Ms. D gloved up and went to work. It took about 20 minutes to remove some severely impacted poop from my daughterling. As soon as the first chunk was out, she was fine with it ~ I think it felt good to get it out of there! The rest of the day was spent cleaning multiple poopy diapers, doing tons of laundry, and comforting Maddy. I did get a short nap in around lunchtime ~ Maddy took a nap, so I did, too. LOVE having a nurse ~ LOVE it! (I used to be the one who did the manual poop removal ~ alone ~ AND do all the comforting/cleaning/washing/bathing afterwards AND I never got to sleep unless M was at school! lol)

I think we went through about 30 diapers today ~ no kidding ~ and there's probably more in there. I did call the GI doc's office this morning, and we have an appointment next Thursday. I'm figuring they'll probably take advantage of Maddy's anesthesia and do a GI series while she's out ~ I would sure love to know why we're suddenly having so much trouble with constipation ~ it used to be a very rare event, now it's almost constant. I live in dread fear of another bowl obstruction ~ the last one, quite literally, almost killed my child. She was hospitalized for a month in the ICU. I try not to remember those days, but I can't help it when she keeps having these episodes weekly. Nothing has changed in her diet (except that we've added prune juice to increase the fiber content!) and her weight gain/growth rate has been appropriate ~ she's just suddenly having lots of difficulty with BMs. Gotta get to the bottom of it. (Pun intended...lol...gotta laugh at this stuff or I'll cry!)

Oh, one other thing I managed today ~ Buddy (the bad little black dachshund) had 4 ~ count 'em, 4!!! ~ baths. Muddy back yard + black dog who couldn't care less about wet feet, belly, and ears = nasty, smelly, mud-covered pup! lol

Needless to say, the garage looks exactly as it did on Monday. I am beginning to wonder if my 14 day goal of a garage I can park my car inside was realistic, especially given all of the appointments we suddenly have for Maddy. lol Maybe I can work on it tomorrow ~ since M. was feeling so much better tonight, she is definitely going to school on Friday.

Time to check for the 12:30 diaper now ~ have a great Friday, and if I don't check in again, have a great weekend!