As Expected

As I expected, the GI doctor wasn't going to fit Jack in his schedule, so off to the ER we went after I finished up a couple of appointments Thursday morning at work.  I told the ER docs to look at Tuesday's CT scan that was in the system and that we were here to be admitted to get the issue resolved.  I think the ER Attending spent all of 10 seconds in Jack's room (and will no doubt bill us $1,000 for his services) and we were a pretty quick admit to the floor.  They started the same routine they did last time and Jack pretty much had the same results as last time.  I went head-to-head with the Attending (Hospitalist) on the floor because I wanted a CT to confirm that this time Jack was cleaned out. The Attending took the position that because it's been a month since Jack's last admission, this was a new episode and that as long as the KUB showed he was cleaned out, that was good enough. However, because I persisted, he called in the GI doc to back him up and I asked the urologist to back me up.  (As a side note, the Attending told me that Jack's GI  doc was a friend of his, so he called him and asked him to come talk to me.  I had to bite my lip not to say how considerate it is of the GI doc come to talk to me about HIS own patient just because the Attending asked him to.  At PCH, the GI docs don't follow their patients when they are admitted, they turn the care over to the Hospitalists.  On the other hand, the urologist was there because he heard Jack got admitted, so he stopped by to check on him and talk with me. This, even though Jack wasn't admitted for a urologic issue.)  In the end, we both compromised. I didn't get my CT, but they did do something called a Gastrografin enema in radiology which, they assured me, showed that Jack was all cleaned out.  I can tell you as I sit here today, I'm skeptical.  Trust me, you don't want all the details of bowel clean-outs, but based on the results I saw, it's simply not logical that all the impacted stool cleared from Jack's bowel.  One of us is wrong and I'm just hoping it's not them because Jack will be the one suffering the consequences.  Time will tell ... once again.  Jack was discharged 24 hours after he was admitted.

Jack's urologist got us in to see a new nephrologist in the group.  When I looked her up, I saw she did her residency at St. Louis Children's Hospital.  I already like her! :)  We are scheduled to see her mid-September.

We also have Jack's next surgery for the kidney stone removal on the books.  Originally, we talked about having it done the first week in September to give Jack time to recover before our trip to St. Louis. But, I really want to get a second opinion from the St. Louis urologist, so I asked our urologist here if he thought it would be a problem waiting until we got back from St. Louis for the surgery. He  didn't think it would be a problem because the stone isn't blocking anything.  We are on the schedule for the third week in October for the surgery.  After my experience this time on the floor and dealing with a condescending Hospitalist, I reminded the urologist that I again wanted Jack to go to the PICU following surgery, not the floor.  He agreed.  I absolutely will not deal, post-op, with physicians who are on power trips and, for some reason, there seem to be an abundance of them on the floor.

It's been an absolutely crazy year with all these hospital admissions.  I feel like I did Jack's first year of life when he bounced in and out of the hospital many times and no one could seem to just fix the problems that kept landing us there.  You'd think by now I'd accept that doctors don't have all the answers and they can't fix all the problems - especially when it comes to Jack.  It's still beyond frustrating at times.

I'm just hoping the next few weeks are calm.  In two weeks, I'll be joining Team Cure CMD for another half marathon. This time it's the Disneyland half.  We are all going over and we'll spend a few days at Disney after the race.  If nothing else, Jack will ride Small World (at least 10 times with me, hehe) because I know that ride is wheelchair accessible and I know he'll love it!

That's the update from here.  I'll leave you with a few pictures from our stay at Phoenix Children's.

Looking out the window of Jack's room at sunset.  

(iPhone camera with an HDR filter)

The next evening - looking to the Northeast out a window on the 6th floor

Jack happy to be bailing from the hospital