Every baby is precious, be it your first, or one in a long line of offspring. Having been born 6 weeks premature (May 22nd, 2007) my beautiful baby boy had already spent 11 days in SCBU, which was traumatic enough to cope with.
At 6 weeks of age he became increasingly constipated, and was sent in to our local hospital to get help. The medicine prescribed was not working, and he was becoming increasingly distressed, crying sometimes for several hours at a time. It was far from pleasant placing suppositories inside a tiny baby’s back passage, even though I was a nurse.
Secondary Stages of Treatment
He was transferred to a specialist children’s hospital for a bowel biopsy. As if this procedure was not traumatic enough to watch and assist with (I'm a nurse myself!), the results did not identify anything? You can imagine the frustration, as I have latterly been told the procedure was not carried out under optimum conditions.
Ok, so onto the next test, top and bottom end barium tests, again distressing, painful for our baby, and not guaranteed to find anything wrong.
Sadly it did. My son was diagnosed with a form of "malrotation" (in short an abnormal formation of the bowel/intestines), which can prove to be extremely dangerous with the biggest risk being a twisted bowel, which if not treated urgently can be fatal. This would need surgical correction at some point, but we were just left with this thought, and no further reassurance.
An Even Bigger Blow
As if the bowel problem was not devastating enough, the ultrasound scan he routinely had (followed by subsequent other tests) identified he had renal failure affecting one of his kidneys. And just our luck he has the most severe form of it.
The Big Operation
So what first? Well on the 20th July 2007 he underwent surgery to correct the bowel problem. He has a neat horizontal scar just above his belly button, something to show his girlfriends when he is older! He spent 2 days in the high dependency unit, but was moved out as he was doing so very well. Even as a nurse I found it heartbreaking seeing him wired to drips and monitors, but it's all pretty standard, and a small price to pay to get your baby well again after weeks of anguish and pain.
The Kidney
As for the kidney, only time and ongoing testing of his kidney function will dictate whether he has the failing kidney removed, or corrective surgery to enhance function. Whatever happens he can’t have any intervention until he is at least 12 months old. More nail biting and anguish for us.
Advice
My advice to any parent who's child requires surgery, is to be as fully informed of the pending procedure as you possibly can. What will the after care be? Will they have adequate pain relief? Where will they be after surgery? How long will they be in?
All this is simply being forewarned and forearmed, making the overall experience far kinder for you as parents.
Your child will always be in the best of medical care, but make sure that you as parents don't get left out of the equation. Make sure the nurses look after you too!
