Sam has landed himself in the hospital. I was told on Sunday afternoon by one of his GI (gastroenterology) docs to bring him in to be evaluated based off his symptoms. We decided to try make it through the night, knowing what the Emergency Department (ED) might look like on a Sunday evening.

The next morning Sam’s nurse and I headed for the dreaded ED. For the first time in five plus years, I packed a bag before we left. I finally learned, since we rarely end up coming home from an ED visit.

Thankfully, when we walked into the lobby, the green light was on, which means they were not busy. We got back fairly quickly and began all the tests, i.e. IV fluids, labs, x-ray, and ultrasound. By the afternoon we found a seemingly definitive answer. Sam was very blocked up. Poor guy.

My packing skills are sub par. I like to have sandals while I’m in the hospital. You do not want to be barefoot on a hospital floor and when your getting up several times throughout the night to care for your sick child, sandals come in handy. Sam’s home care nurse got a pretty good laugh when I went to switch to my sandals. I was so prepared! I’m blaming it on lack of sleep.

The plan was to keep him for the night, “clean” him out, start feeds, and go home. We’ve never had to do a bowl clean out before. Not fun.

He had a second x-ray because he clinically looked cleaned out, but was still not turning the corner. Bummer. The x-ray showed he was all cleaned out so we hoped it was just taking him a little longer.

Here’s the thing, when you have a nonverbal kid, these kind of things are that much harder. He can’t tell us what hurts or what’s bothering him. We can only use the cues we know for when he’s not feeling good. For Sam, the cues are facial grimacing, low energy, his nystagmus gets worse, and clicking his hips. We want our energizer bunny back.

On day three, he still wasn’t turning the corner. The consensus was try start feeds and see how he does or get a CT scan to rule out anything else.

We got a CT scan and will wait for good news.

Faith Over Fear

Sam Strong