Emergency Room Trip

Having your child complain about excrutiating chest pain is SCAAAARY!!!  We got a phone call while we were on our date night last night from Emmy because Dylan was having chest pain.  Having heard similar complaints from him before, we didn't rush too fast, but knew we needed to get home.

Dylan was seen by a doctor at Primary's for this a couple of years ago and everything was normal, so I wasn't too panicked and decided to just watch him for a while.  As the time passed, the pain became more frequent and more painful.  He started complaining of dizziness and turned pure white.  All of a sudden, he looked like death warmed over and both Chris and I got really nervous.  So at 11:30 p.m., in the snow, I drove up to Primary Children's Hospital.  I've learned over the years to just go straight up there when it comes to the kids.  It's a children's hospital and the care is specialized in pediatrics.  I have always felt that I walk away from that hospital better informed and with more understanding than I do at other hospitals.  They take time to listen to what I have to say and are willing to do extra testing if I request it.

When the doctor came in to examine Dylan, she was stummped by the pain he was feeling in his abdomen when she pushed on it.  I told her I'd had him at the doctor three weeks prior and that his pediatrician said he was probably a little constipated.  I put him on Mirilax and the pain subsided, so I didn't think any more of it.  But the ER doc was concerned that he was still tender, so not only did she order an EKG and x-rays for his heart, she wanted films on his tummy as well.

The EKG and heart x-rays came back normal and healthy.  The ones on his tummy....not so much.  She said that there was, and I quote, "an OH! MY! GOSH!! amount of stool in his intestines".  The ENTIRE intestinal tract was FULL!!!  I can literally say that Dylan is FULL OF CRAP!!  Heheheheheheheh =)  She didn't see any built up obstructions and told me that I could successfully treat him at home with big doses of Mirilax.  And that if I wasn't seeing an AMAZING amount of stool coming out, to give him an enema.  Oh JOY!!!  But now I know that he needs to be cleaned out and can take action in that regard.  As far as the chest pain goes, she told me that because the tests on his heart came back normal that I didn't need to worry about something major.  She told me that he has costochondritis, which is pain coming from the rib cartilages in the chest wall and is caused by subtle straining of the ribs near the breastbone.  The strain can occur from a mild injury, coughing or sneezing due to a cold, vigorous vomiting, or even from rib compression while sleeping.  He has been sick with a cold, so she was pretty confident that it will run it's course and go away.  I was relieved, to say the least.  So now that I know his chest pains are just annoying pains that  he's going to have to endure for a while, I can tackle his constipation that is much worse that originally thought!

Anyone who has ever been to an emergency room knows of the hours on end of waiting that you have to endure.  Dylan was bored, so I gave him my camera to take pictures of whatever he wanted to help pass the time.  The only thing he was really interested in photographing were the stitches that I got earlier that day from having moles #3 and 4 removed from my face.  He kept telling me that I had spiders on my face. =)