While it was a long weekend here in Canada as we celebrated Victoria Day, for our family it was a long weekend for a different reason. Poor Joel has been suffering from terrible tummy aches. He has had bowel issues since his surgery back in March.

We toughed things out for as long as we could. Saturday night it was clear that we needed to take Joel back to the hospital. So we waited until Sunday morning and headed back. His pain came in waves and when it came it was intense. They did an x-ray and an ultrasound and confirmed what we already knew…Joel is extremely constipated… severely. Unfortunately, they decided to send Joel home telling us to increase his PEG (one of his meds) and come back if his pain increased, developed a fever or started vomiting.

This was extremely frustrating to Dave and I as we already felt he was at a 10 for pain. We headed home and just before we got home Joel started vomiting. As we had just picked up the other kids, we once again decided to wait until the morning to head back to the hospital.

They decided to admit Joel and they are going to try and flush his system. They run a tube through his nose and in to his stomach, then they flush with a solution that should help move things along. They decided to take another x-ray to make sure the tube was in the right spot. They then shared’ their concerns that Joel possibly has a second issue going on with the bowels and they wanted him to have a surgical consult. AHHH!

They hummed and haaa’d about doing a CT scan and in the end decided to follow Occam’s razor…. “the simplest solution is usually the correct one.” So for now they are just going to treat for constipation and if any symptoms persist then they will investigate further.

Poor guy is all hooked up and and still trying hard to sleep. As I am dozing as I am writing I’d better try and get a bit of sleep too!
Blessings,