Frustrated Yet Hopeful

So…our appointment wasn’t quite all we hoped it would be.  We got exactly what we wanted and exactly what we didn’t want all rolled up into one.  (Never happy, huh?)

First off, we kind of felt like they didn’t really hear us out when discussing Josiah’s history and symptoms, but instead had in mind what the problem is and tailored it to fit.  Now, I have complete confidence that they know more about it than us, so we’ll trust their judgment, but perhaps more explanation, better answers to questions, or just feeling like our explanation of his symptoms was more considered would help to ease our minds.  At the same time I’d like nothing more than for them to be completely right.

What we wanted was for them to have a good idea of what the problem is and an easy recommendation for treatment  to start immediately.  We got that.  Unfortunately it was for something we (meaning the pediatrician and us) had already pretty much ruled out, making us feel a bit skeptical and needing more confidence.

So, what’s the big verdict?  Constipation.  Go figure.  Really?  Is that why he tries to poop constantly but only has success once out of 25 tries?  Excuse my sarcasm, but we already kind of knew this though we didn’t call it this by name because he can produce and often does frequently (sorry, TMI?) he just does so abnormally.  The assumption was that there is an underlying cause because he willingly eats a great diet, drinks plenty, and has no qualms about trying to go.  That underlying cause is what was concerning us.  The frustrating part is that they are trying to stick him in the category of those kids who purposely withhold thereby causing constipation.  That was the one thing that we said going into it that if that is what they said then we wouldn’t be able to accept it easily without some sort of great explanation or proof because, from what we have gathered, it just doesn’t fit.  But what can you do?  The treatment is fairly easy, so why pass that up when the alternative may be stressful diagnostics?  Anyway, there are a whole list of reasons that we aren’t sure he fits the picture and many unanswered questions, but I won’t go into that.

The new plan of action is to try giving him Miralax.  Duh!  (That’s what we feel like.  Get all worked up just to try an over the counter medicine.)  We’ll also do a few very minor changes to his diet, though they even said he eats such a good one that there isn’t much we can do there – which leads me to wonder how we got here to start with if there is no underlying cause.  We will be elated if such an easy fix actually fixes him, but frustrated because we could have tried this months ago.  We even talked about trying Miralax before, but opted not to because as I said, he does produce regularly.  They gave an explanation of why this is possible that I won’t go into since it you may think it’s gross.

Now we wait.  We started his new plan already today.  If he’s not showing improvement in about 2 weeks, we call back.  Otherwise we have a recheck in 6 weeks.  We are just concerned that if there is no improvement, we’ll be that much farther behind.  Also, the doc mentioned that “We can get him to go.  That’s not a problem.” which led us to wonder if we’d just be masking that underlying cause.  Oh well, I guess the goal is to get him comfortable and if we do that, great.

Maybe we are just worried overprotective parents who have had too much time to wait and get overly worried to have faith in a simple fix.  Yet I do hope it works and we can avoid further diagnostics.  That would be an answer to prayer and I guess this is just a test of faith because I’d prefer more reassurance that the weeks of waiting and today’s appointment weren’t a waste.

Like I said, frustrated yet hopeful.

Ironically, we grabbed lunch after the appointment and shortly after getting home we realized that our lunch and our intestines were having a disagreement.  So now how do we tell the difference between Miralax effects and our lunch???  Life is never boring!

(This got really long.  I love blogging.  It lets me get things off my chest.  Thanks for listening/reading.)