Bowel Management Bootcamp - Day 6

Yesterday was a very full day so I didn't get to sit and type up our report.  After a weekend of doing the new foley balloon enemas with Mason and having no accidents I was interested to see what the x-ray would show.  The doctors said it looks great, that the current plan is emptying his colon where it should.  Hooray!  So this is what we stick with for now:

• Liquid solution of 400mL saline and 30mL glycerin
• Time putting fluid in/holding fluid: 10 minutes
• Time sitting on toilet total, including fluid time: 60 minutes

Mason will have an x-ray today (Tuesday) and then on Wednesday he will go to Children's Hospital for a final x-ray and meeting with the colorectal team to finish out his week of Bowel Management Bootcamp.  Then we just keep doing what we are doing.  We will also probably play with the length of time Mason sits on the toilet after this week is over.  During the program they ask you to be very exact in what you do to control all variables.  However we're noticing that Mason doesn't seem to have any fluid coming out after about 45 minutes sitting.  So we'll drop our sit time to 50 minutes and see if he remains accident free.  Why?  Because sitting on the toilet for an hour is a really long time for a 3 year old!  He does amazingly well at being patient, playing games with us or watching cartoons, but if we don't have to sit for exactly an hour then we won't.

The other big thing for Mason yesterday was his fourth IV infusion of medication for his osteoporosis.  It ended up being a long-ish afternoon.  We left at 11am and returned home at 3pm.  It would not have taken so long but one of the things we always require is that they call down the IV team to place Mason's IV.  His veins tend to collapse so we have a standing order in his file that they are to call IV team.  We also have them place IVs in his feet (unless all those veins blow out on a bad day).  So a large chunk of our time yesterday was spent waiting for the IV team to make it to Mason.  They finally got to him about an hour and 45 minutes after his appointment time.  The regular nurses offered to try and start the IV when they heard from IV team that it would be an hour and a half wait.  We declined, telling them we were happy to wait and that we always come knowing we will need to wait.  You could see they were skeptical. That is when I tell them that Mason's record is blowing 6 veins and finally getting an IV placed in the 7th vein.  We're not willing to mess around and are happy to wait for the people who literally spend all day placing IVs to make this as easy on Mason as possible.   

Well, that's really all I have to report today so I'm off to wake Mason and head to x-ray!