Mason's trip to the ER

It all started last Wednesday night. We put Mason and Kennedy to bed at 7 like we always do. Nate and I went and watched our tv show and at 9 pm Mason woke up screaming his guts out (not just a normal cry, a cry like someone just punched my face kind of cry). So I run in our room and try to calm him down. It took a while for him to calm down, but he eventually did. About 20 minutes later, he woke up screaming again. I calmed him down, and about 30 minutes later he woke up screaming again... I tried feeding him, he wouldn't take it, so I gave him some Tylenol and he went back to sleep. Every hour or so Mason woke up screaming but he was so tired that he would not open his eyes. He was screaming in his sleep.

So finally at 6 am I tried feeding him again (he normally eats at 7am but since it had been such a rough night I thought sticking to our normal schedule would have to skip a day.) After he ate, I changed his diaper and noticed his poop was really dark green/brown... I didn't really think anything of it. So we went to the gym and 30 minutes later, the girl from child watch came and said Mason had just pooped and asked permission to change his diaper. I told her he kind of had diarrhea so I would come change it so she wouldn't have to deal with it. When I opened his diaper, his poop was black and I noticed some blood in the mix.

So on my way home I called my pediatrician and left a message. The nurse called back and scheduled us to come in later that day. So I thought, oh, no big deal. Went to feed Mason and he wanted nothing to do with that bottle. Mason is a chubby baby... and once it's been 3 hours... he is READY to eat again. At the time, I didn't think much of it, just that he was probably really tired. So about 5 minutes later the nurse calls back and says she just talked to one of the dr.s and she said to just take him straight to the ER. She asked me how long it would take us to get there and said that she had already called the ER to let them know we would be there within 30 minutes. Sooo I started freaking out. The children's ER is in the city. I had never driven into the city (not really that big of a deal, I just hate hate hate hate hate driving in Philly), I had no idea where I was going and I was stressing out because I did not want to go to the ER with Mason and Kennedy all my myself. So I called Nate at school and he said he could leave so I went and picked him up and he drove all four of us to the ER.

We check in and they get us right in and into a room. After a while the nurse came to get Mason for an x-ray. I had to pin him down so he wouldn't move while they did it. Not super sad because he wasn't too fussy about it.They said everything looked good so we went back to our room. A little bit later they came and got him for an ultrasound. By this time it was about 1 pm. Mason hadn't eaten anything since 6 am but was still pretty happy. The ultrasound took what seemed like an hour. Mason was screaming the entire time. I had to help pin him down so the guy doing it could get a clear picture. In the mean time, Nate was trying to keep Kennedy occupied and happy. Poor Mason was so sweaty from screaming for so long. They finally finished the ultrasound and I was able to hold Mason and calm him down. A few minutes later, they came back in with a Dr. that wanted to take a look for herself. So back onto the table he went, the second I put him down, he started screaming his head off. Again, I had to pin him down so they could get a clear shot.

The Dr. the explained to us that they saw that a part of his intestines had telescoped (intaciception). Meaning his intestines collapsed in on themselves and that they needed to do a procedure on him to pop it back out. we went back to our room and little Mason fell asleep instantly. A guy from the surgery team came in to explain how the procedure would work, and if it didn't, they would have to take him into surgery to fix the problem.

The nurse came in to get Mason started on an IV to get some fluids in his body but failed to get it in properly 2 times. By this time, Nate decided to take Kennedy home to beat rush hour and get her some food (since all she had had that day was fruit snacks and whatever other candy I happened to have at the bottom of my purse). Since the first nurse failed to get an IV in, she called in another nurse that tried another 2 times and failed. Mason was screaming the entire time they were maneuvering his hands and feet and stinking needles in him trying to find a good vein. 4 attempts unsuccessful. So they called someone from the IV team (whose supposed to be oober good at getting it in). She tried 3 times and failed. Finally they called in one more nurse to try to get an IV in him so they could get him up to the Dr.s that were waiting on him. She got it in in one shot.

After I got him calmed down, they wheeled us up to the room where he was going to have the procedure done. The nurse explained to me again what was going to happen, had me lay Mason down on the table and she proceeded to shove a little tube up Mason's little bum, and she tapped his little bum up so tight so no air could possibly escape his little bum hole. They rolled him over and had an x-ray machine taking consistent x-rays displayed on a TV screen so they could see what they were doing, and proceeded to just pump air into his bum until his intestines popped back into place. It took maybe a total of 2 minutes, then we were out of there.

They moved us to a more roomy room so we could stay the night so they could monitor him to make sure it didn't happen again (if it was going to happen again, they say it would have happened within the first 24 hours) So little Mason and I got all cozy in our room and tried to get some rest.
Finally, the next morning at around 8 am (26 hours since his last feeding) i was able to feed Mason some pedialite and he guzzled that thing like a champ. I had to wait until he had a nice wet diaper (he hadn't peed since his first black/bloody diaper) till I could feed him some formula. He had no problem filling his diaper because he drank so much pedialite! They gave me the ok to feed him some formula and he was in heaven. They monitored him to make sure he could drink and fill his diapers without any problems.

While we where just waiting around, Mason and I went on lots of walks around the floor. He is such a happy baby and I love that he will always give me a smile or little giggle! Nate and Kennedy came back to the hospital that afternoon and we got the ok to go home.

It is such a heart breaking experience having to watch your child be in pain. I thought I would be able to handle it a little bit better than when we had to take Kennedy to the ER when she was 4 weeks old, but no. It wasn't any easier. I am the one that is responsible for doing everything for this precious baby and sometimes I can't help but think that maybe I did something to cause this problem to happen to him.  I am so grateful for modern technology and medicine. I know it could have been a lot worse, and I thank my Heavenly Father that it wasn't.