Clayton’s Hospital Stay

WARNING: NOT FOR THOSE WITH A WEAK STOMACH.. Clayton’s hospital stay consisted of removing a large blockage from his colon.

This past Wednesday Clayton was admitted into the hospital for a colon cleansing. The colon has been blocked for the last year. His Pedi had put him on Miralax to see if that would unblock it. It didn’t so we were referred to a Pedi GI who ordered this procedure to happen ASAP. His expected stay was 24-48 hours. He was admitted Wednesday morning and not discharged until Friday evening. I stayed in the hospital with my little guy the entire time and it is probably the worst I have ever felt as a Mother. Upon admittance, a tube was placed up his nose and into his stomach. For the next 48 hours, 3 gallons of medicine were pumped into his stomach.

The medicine once it took effect (around 12 hours after the start) it made him extremely sick. So we now had stuff coming out of both ends. He vomited so bad he couldn’t breathe. The nurse told me that she could not give him anything for the vomiting. So every hour or so from that moment on meant not only changing his bedding from explosive diarrhea but also watching my son struggle to breathe because of his vomiting.

Finally on Thursday when the Pedi GI team made their rounds and stopped by I let the doctor know that he was vomiting really bad and asked why couldn’t he have any anti-nausea medicine. She said he could. I let her know what the nurse said, and she seemed to get very irritated saying that the nurse never even paged to ask, and if she would have, that she (the doctor) would have immediately ordered the anti-nausea medicine from the pharmacy. Within an hour Clayton had his medicine and no longer vomited.

Thursday night was not as bad, although we still had to change his bedding every couple of hours (and yes he had on a hospital diaper but even that didn’t hold it in). Friday around 5 pm Clayton was taken to have another X-Ray done and it finally showed his colon to be clear. A couple of more hours later (57 hours after he was admitted) and he was discharged and we were on our way home. Clayton will now have to have Miralax daily for the next couple of years in order to allow his colon to shrink to normal size and to make sure it does not get blocked again.

It was also during this time that I realized what an amazing little boy I have. He rarely complained during the whole thing. His biggest complaint was being hungry (he was on a liquid diet the entire time). He really is a very amazing little boy! And I am so happy this is now behind us!