Being the Mom

Sometimes, being the mom stinks. Literally.

Poor Laine's lifelong battle with stomach aches, nausea, fatigue, and bowel issues have now moved to center stage. This year, her problems have become more frequent and severe, and I finally got tired of the doctor's advice...variously: more fiber, stop dairy products, give yogurt with cultures to get rid of the diarrhea, keep a food diary, determine which foods cause a reaction,reduce her stress. I demanded that we narrow down what is going on with her body, because her frequent stomach aches, exhaustion and diarrhea have been causing her much distress as well as leading to missed school.

So I found myself over the past two months taking stool samples, scooping poop (diarrhea and constipation) and stuffing into little bottles filled with equally nasty smelling chemicals, or smearing it onto cardboard. "Scrape along the surface of the stool" the instructions say. What stool, I want to know? What is the "surface" of diarrhea? We've been to the lab so frequently for blood work that Laine is beginning to laugh at the jokes the lab techs make. Seriously, if you knew how bad those jokes were....

After a string of negative results, one of the blood tests came up positive. Laine tested positive for Crohn's disease. So we were referred to a specialist. We have Kaiser, but Kaiser's specialist happens to also work at Children's Hospital and is well respected. Upon reviewing Laine's history, she said that Laine's symptoms match up to Crohn's and the test was positive, but that there are some other "markers" they look for that aren't present. Laine will need to undergo a Esophagogastroduodenoscopy and a colonoscopy. Basically, the doctor will take a camera with a blade attached and look inside of Laine's digestive system to see if there is inflammation present. They will look for ulcers and bleeding, as well as polyps, unusual growths, or swelling. The good news is that Laine will be sedated, and they will do the exam at Children's where all they do is children. The big day will be May 24th.

The day before the exam, we have to administer medicine to Laine to make her clear out her bowels, as well as make sure she consumes one 8 oz glass (til the whole gallon is gone) every 10 minutes of this nasty salt water stuff. She can only have clear liquids the whole day, nothing red or purple. And they've kindly given us something to give her before she drinks all that mess to ensure she won't vomit.

I really hope the test was a false positive. I would hate for Laine to have a lifelong chronic illness that can put her in the hospital. I'm praying hard and I hope that you will too. I hope that we can find out what is wrong so we can try to put things right. In the meantime, we still have one more stool sample to do. Any volunteers??