Wilkins' World: Ryan's ER Adventure

It was a normal Sunday morning of rushing around getting ready for church. My in-laws were visiting and we were upstairs getting the kids dressed. Charline was in the playroom with Ryan while I was straightening up his room. She came in and told me he stopped playing and grabbed his belly in pain. By the time I got to him he was fine - it was like nothing had happened. About 15 minutes later the same thing happened. This time I was with him. He stopped playing trains, fell down and was screaming and rolling around inconsolably for about 2-3 minutes. Again, he recovered fine and started playing. At this point we figured it was probably gas pains. We found the mylocon drops and gave him those. Another 10 minutes went by and again, he had another episode. We called the on-call nurse who recommended we give him tylenol and if he was still was having pain after an hour to take him in. He appeared to be a bit sleepy so I rocked him and laid him down, patting his back and then he fell asleep. We were hopeful he would sleep and this tummy ache would go away when he woke up. But again, 15 minutes later he was awake and screaming and there was nothing I could do. My gut told me something was wrong. By this point, Michael had taken the big kids to church (he was teaching our SS class), I had texted our Children's Director to let her know that I couldn't teach the 3's. Michael's Dad (he's a Pharm D) gave us his medical opinion. We thought possibly he had swallowed something although he wasn't unattended that morning. I also did a quick web search to see what this might be. Ryan had most of the symptoms of one particular condition addressed on babycenter.com. It was called intussusception - when the bowels telescope into each other causing a blockage. At about 10:00 am I had decided to take him to Children's Hospital in Plano (bypassing Acute Kids b/c I knew from experience I would just be sent to Children's if it was something severe). We were checked in quickly and of course by the time we were in the room, he stopped having episodes. It had been over an hour since the last bout (which was a small one on our way to the hospital). Michael's mom watched the big kids while Michael and I spoke to several drs and then went in for an ultrasound of his bowels. We had convinced ourselves at this point that it was just gas since he seemed to be fine. How shocked we were to hear the technician tell us she saw two intussuscpetions. The tech had us wait 20 minutes before she took another screening to see if it was resolving itself. It was not. I cried as I knew it was bad news, Michael was very concerned and alarmed and Ryan was on the verge of a meltdown - he was hungry, thirsty (no fluids allowed at this point) and missing his nap. We were transported to Children's Dallas via ambulance since they did not have the staff or facilities available if the non-surgical procedure failed and surgery was required. We arrived at Children's Dallas ER and it was beyond chaotic and crowded. We literally had to work with 5 or 6 different drs (some were residents and it is a teaching hospital). He had a few x-rays and another round of sonograms (they never received the original records) and finally the radiologist decided to preform the air enema. They didn't sedate him, but held him down and inserted a tube into his rectum. Air was pushed thru the tube and the intestines "popped out". Amazing. It was successful and our baby was fixed up!!! We were so happy and beyond grateful that the procedure worked (text book case they said). Nothing was torn or permanently damaged - we caught it early enough. We stayed overnight to make sure he could eat and eliminate waste normally. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep that night. Lots of vital checks and even a 6 am wake up call to a room full of students and their teacher just looking at my baby (no exam or anything). As crazy as it was...we were so thankful to God for watching over our baby and guiding the doctors' minds and hands as they cared for him. So very grateful that Ryan wasn't seriously affected by this. He's our bruiser baby, so resilient and strong. Love you sweet baby.