Thursday, September 8, 2011

Hooray for poop!


Tuesday, August 30th
Extract from a post of mine on a NB listserve


There is such a dichotomy of what I show/express to the "outside world", and what is going on inside my head.  I want so desperately to believe that Alejandro will beat this.  I tell myself over and over and over every day, every night, every waking moment that we will beat this, we will, but, especially since relapse in February, I find this harder and harder.  We have to stay positive.  For us and especially for our children.  But sometimes it takes such a toll.

Alejandro had been complaining for 2 days of lower belly pain but he wouldn't let me get near his belly to feel it.  Since we were on the last two days of Irino/Temo, I figured today we would discuss it with the oncologist- maybe it was related to treatment.  As it was, I decided to poke around Ale's tummy once he was asleep last night to try to put my mind at rest.  What I felt was a hard lump in his lower abdomen with a very distinguishable shape.  This was around 4 am.  Obviously, I did not go back to sleep.  As soon as we got to the hospital today for treatment (of course smiling all the way- everything is cool, everything is great) I grabbed the oncologist on his way through the day hospital and told him out of earshot of the kids what was going on.  He immediately came over and spent quite some time examining Alejandro's abdomen.  He was of course very thorough.  At this point I am imagining all the worst-case scenarios all the while with my everything is fine smile plastered on my face.  Diagnosis:  fecaloma- in other words -Poop.  Alejandro gets constipated from Irinotecan instead of getting diarrhea.  But this had never even crossed my mind.  Needless to say, I had to leave the room as I started crying out of control.  I mean, I really lost it.  And it took me quite a while to get myself under control again.  It was just poop and I couldn't stop crying. 

Just another day in the life of an NB parent.

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