A rather late night

Fynn was complaining of a sore tummy and have a fever yesterday. At first we thought it was a cold. It became more obvious that he was in a fair bit of pain, especially when he tried to have a bowel movement. At around 9:30pm when Vic came home from swimming we talked about what to do. It was hard to remember when Fynn had last gone to the bathroom in spite of repeated attempts to "go."

So, I took him to the hospital last night (no walk in clinics open at that hour).

Fynn was assessed and the doctor found a hard, compacted stool in his bowel that was not passing on its own.

Fynn received a pediatric enema, which was not as bad as it sounds. He tried to go at the hospital but still nothing (I will spare you the details of the whole ordeal because some of it is pretty gross).

I took him home and about 10 minutes after we got home, he tried to go again and this time he went. In a big way! He had a bath and promptly fell asleep about 12:30pm.

The hospital gave me a booklet called Childhood Constipation. While extra fibre will aid regularity it will not help constipation until the problem itself is resolved.

Fynn needs to increase his water intake, and likely most importantly go when his "body tells him to go" which is the message we are trying to instill in him. The more you ignore that message, the more likely hard, compacted stool will form and stay in your bowel, thereby making the problem worse.

So, he is now practicing some new behavior (going when he needs to and not holding it in), drinking more and mixing some of his medication into his juice to get him comfortable with a daily bowel movement.

Fynn stayed home from school today so he could get some rest (thankfully our friend Patti could watch him in the morning) and then he went back to daycare in the afternoon.