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3.10.08

Thursday morning after breakfast squirt #2 began complaining of a stomach ache. That happens ALL the time, so I figured it was gas, constipation or something along those lines.
Periodically throughout the day Thursday, he would crouch down and roll on the floor in mild to moderate pain and wait for it to pass. He was crying and whimpering, lost his appetite and wanted to be held all day long. He had no fever or diahrrea, no vomiting, just pain. Wierd.

Thursday night was bad. We slept in the recliner chair all night long. He squirmed in pain every hour or so, each episode lasting 15-20 minutes, this time in more pain and crying and screaming out. I knew we needed to do something, so Friday morning as soon as squirt #1 was off to school, I called the Dr. for an appointment and brought him in. He was doing okay during the appointment, so the doctor didn't see him in pain. He gave him a sucker and told me he was just constipated and sent me to buy laxatives.

LAXATIVES

Friday was a long day. The laxatives created diahrrea, as they are supposed to do. Landon sat on the throne all day in a lot of pain, but as soon as he was done on the throne, the pain was much more severe than it was previous to the experience on the throne. That made no sense to me. Constipation is supposed to be eliviated by laxatives and time on the throne instead of escalated. Lucky for us, Landon lost his appetite and stopped eating much food.


I was getting confused. By Friday night Landon was in a lot of pain. It would come and go, cause 15-20 minutes of extreme abdominal pain and then slowly go away until it was gone. He would run around normal again for a while until another pain attack would come. After Landon went to bed that night, I called the doctor we went to see earlier that day and explained the events of the day. The doctor agreed with me that this pain was definitely not caused by constipation, but he did not know what it could be without a medical workup of blood samples, xrays, and maybe a cat scan. He recommended a visit to the emergency room if the pain continued through the night. Luckily, Friday night was not as bad as Thursday night and the pain seemed less severe and he only had one pain episode during the night. We decided that since the pain wasn't as bad and he seemed to be getting better, he could wait until morning to see the doctor again. The doc was actually working on Saturday.

Saturday morning began very well. Landon was healthy, running around, playing bad guys and swinging swords. His appetite came back and he ate everything. We were relieved and excited and feeling a lot better about his condition. I thought about going back to the doctor, but decided not to take Landon back there while he was feeling good, as the doctor might say, "well he looks great to me!" I figured if we were going back again, it would be because of illness, not wellness.

We had a family party at my mom's house that night. Landon was normal, playing with the cousins, eating food, running around as any normal 4 year old would. We came home that night looking forward to a good night's sleep. But that didn't happen!

Landon began with pains again at midnight, or one am, depending on when you changed your clocks. The pains were severe, and lasting a long time. He was screaming and crying, and by 3:00 am we decided to go to the emergency room. I left with Landon while Aaron called my brother Scott and his wife Karen to come to our house so Corinne wasn't alone. When they arrived at the house, Karen stayed with Corinne and Aaron & Scott came to the hospital to give Landon a blessing.

THE EMERGENCY ROOM

Landon was a very brave boy for all the tests run in the ER. He had an IV, about 5 vials of blood drawn, an abdominal xray, a urine sample and and ultrasound. They were suspecting something called intersesepsis (I think) where the small intestine slides inside the large intestine. That test came up negative. They tested for many things i.e. apendicitis, hernia, intestinal infection, I don't even know all the tests they ran. In the end they came up with MESENTERIC ADENITIS.

MESENTERIC ADENITIS

This disease is an inflammation of the lymph nodes surrounding the large intestine, especially in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen, right next to the appendix. The symptoms are very similar to apendicitis. It is usually a viral infection, spread through contaminated food, water, or uncooked pork. Pain is experienced as bulk passes through the large intestine, swelling the bowel and rubbing and pressing all the inflammed & infected lymph nodes. (believe me, it is very painful)
Treatment of this strange viral infection is simple, eat a diet of nothing, or foods that can be very easily digested so as to not cause the bowel to swell and press on the lymph nodes. Landon is currently on a diet such as this. He can eat these things:

water
juice with no pulp
jello
coffee with no cream
tea
broth
white bread
unbuttered potato
white rice
applesauce
bananas
cooked noodles with no sauce
soda crackers

That's it folks! If he eats anything else, he is writhing in pain again. This could last for a few days or up to two weeks, the same time it takes for any other viral infection to run it's course. Lucky it isn't contagios. You have to ingest it through contaminated food, water or uncooked pork. Where or when Landon ate this bug is a mystery to me as we have no pigs out in the yard for hunting.