The Plunge
Today we’re delving into the world of poop. It’s going to be total TMI. Though over the top exaggeration is what I do best and that is why you routinely stop by.
So a week ago, I wrote about the whole potty training deal with Cardin. After you have a kid, you’d be completely astounded as to how comfortable you are dealing with their bodily functions. In fact, it borders on an obsession to know the number of times a day a diaper is changed or your kid asks to use the potty. Listen Lady, it becomes such a mundane fact that it can be discussed over dinner as casually as your day at the office. I suppose on some level, the ease of which bodily functions are discussed is advantageous to children; I just like talking about poop though.
Cardin has been doing fabulous with potty training, but like any kid, she’s had a couple minor infractions that we’ve lived through as we navigate these new waters. Understandably, this is a big change for her and she has struggled with actually pooping on the toilet. By struggled I mean she holds it for days at a time. This is completely unnatural for a child of her size and yet she continued to consume extreme quantities of food.
This started almost immediately when we began potty training and in an attempt to help her, we bought apple prune juice. Alas, she proved resilient to our juice attempts. By the time we had gone 96 hours without any sign of poop, I called in the peditrican for backup. He suggested trying a laxative.
Cardin finally imploded that night. I was milliseconds away from busting out in a special rendition of Salt n’ Pepa’s “Push It” when Cardin finally made landfall. Elated, she ran off to get her Hershey Kisses while I was left to deal with the atom bomb she just dropped.
I’m going to emphasize again that this kid weighs less than 30 pounds and had not pooped in 96 hours when this incident occurred. I was forced to plunge our toilet not once, but twice, in order to remove the backup. Listen Lady, by this time I was in a fit of uncontrolled laughter; tears were running down my face. It is incomprehensible to me that a THREE YEAR OLD could plug a toilet so badly that a hazmat team is needed and yet its one more thing to check off my bucket list.
Friday Night Fun
Life has been fairly uneventful around the listen lady house lately, so I decided to up the ante on Friday night. We’d had quite a bit of snow during the day and even with two SUV’s, there was no way we were getting in the driveway. When we arrived home from work, we left the cars parked in the street and Brett started to snow blow the driveway. Except he didn’t get very far. And by that I mean he made one pass down the driveway and one pass up the driveway before I called him in.
You see Lady, as Brett was clearing off the driveway I started having sudden pain in my lower left abdomen. It was the most unrelenting, unnerving pain I’ve ever felt; and I’ve given birth people. Initially, I thought that baby Diego was laying awkwardly up against my gigantic spleen. I tried sitting, standing, laying, and I even proded my stomach a few times to see if he’d move, but the pain never ceased. I gave up and finally motioned for Brett to come back into the house so I could call the doctor.
It seemed, at the exact moment I called for him to come inside, utter chaos erupted. The pain grew more intense, Cardin started screaming as she was not ready to come in from playtime in the snow, and one of us was constantly on the phone trying to arrange care for Cardin and/or answering doctors questions.
My parents arrived to watch Cardin and the on call doctor instructed us to come to the hospital immediately and head straight for OB Triage. Thing was…by this point, I was writhing in pain on the floor, unable to move without assistance, and ready to go for someone’s jugular if they did not manage to relieve the pain. Driving ourselves was clearly not an option, so we called an ambulance.
Brett floored the cars into the garage and managed to collect my purse and jacket before the ambulance arrived; though neither of us remembered a set of keys (an important fact for later). Since I’m pregnant, the EMT’s were unable to give me any sort of pain medication, though they did manage to shove an IV into my arm. The EMT who was riding with me happened to be male and since he could do little to alleviate my pain, he let me squeeze his hand and told me to “breath through the pain.” Listen Lady, to his credit, he did say “I’m a man, that’s all we know how to say so we don’t feel useless.”
I was taken up to OB Triage where the resident initially checked the pregnancy to make sure:
1) baby Diego had a heartbeat that wasn’t under stress
2) that I wasn’t experiencing pre-term labor
Since neither was the case, we moved on to an ultrasound. By this time, I had been given percocet to reduce the pain and that helped immensely; though I began to act like a loopy fool.
The purpose of the ultrasound was really to see the gargantuan size of my spleen and measure a cyst on my left ovary that is a cause for concern. Cyst’s are a pretty common occurrence in women, and most are benign, but the size of this cyst makes it likely to either rupture or twist my ovary; cutting off blood supply. Neither of these options sounded especially rad; given that both would cause excruciating pain and likely lead to a very complicated surgery; wherin we’d be putting the baby at serious risk.
By some stroke of luck, the ultrasound showed that the cyst had not ruptured and if a torsion had been the source of the pain, it had self-corrected. Good news lady, blood is flowing normally to all your organs. The attending physician left us with the option to be admitted for observation in case the torsion reoccurred or to head home, with strong painkillers, and a resounding promise to come back immediately if I felt the same pain or experienced any signs of infection; fever, vommitting, etc.
I chose to be discharged and we left the hospital; weilding a prescription for percocet. There was one minor problem though, during the chaos to leave the house, we both forgot keys to get back in. EPIC FAIL. Luckily my parents have an extra key.
Since the whole triage incident I’m no longer allowed to lift anything remotely heavy, roll over without assistance, or drive. All of these acts may trigger another torsion and we clearly need to avoid the option of surgery. Since I’m on medication and cannot drive, I’m spending the next 5 months working from home; in seclusion. Obviously not the ideal situation, but it keeps me off Long Term Disability and will likely generate some crazy blog entries.
A resolution
At the end of last year, we decided it was time to get serious about this potty training gig for Cardin; especially since we’ve hit the pregnancy halfway point with Diego. We had made attempts last year, but she showed no interest. I didn’t push the issue, figuring she’d develop the instinct on her own when she was ready as she has with other milestones.
I’ve never been comfortable with forcing her into a developmental milestone before she’s ready and willing to do so independently. I’m sure many “experts” would disagree, but this is the approach we’ve taken with so many firsts for her. Ceasing a bottle, walking, putting her to bed, taking away the pacifier, and even with her speech; these were all stages she reached of her own volition when she was developmental ready.
I’m sure much of this comes from my background in psychology, but I’ve also learned, mostly through life lesson, that no matter how much you want someone to do something, they will not do so until they are ready and acknowledge the issue.
Alas, it seemed as though the inevitable potty training was never going to happen unless we pushed her to it. I purchased special training underwear, pull ups, and the bribe; Hershey kisses. Last weekend we made our first go at no diapers. At first she wasn’t keen on the idea of the training pants; mostly because they felt different than a diaper. However, she has done exceptionally well all week long and has even started to tell us she needs to use the potty.
Whether it is 7 am or 10 pm, she so gracefully reminds us each time that she gets a Hershey kiss. Fingers crossed the trend continues.