Happy Birthday Maeve! Now USE THE TOILET!

Michaela: no accidents
Maeve: 0
Alasdair: 185

Things have slowed down a little bit with Doodie. He's not leaking poo like he was the last couple of days, and things have firmed up a little bit, so hopefully his gut is on the way to recovery.

In other news, it's Maeve's 3rd birthday today. Still no hope of using the potty anytime soon though. I see diapers in my future. Lots and lots of them. :)

The Constant Stream

Michaela: no accidents
Maeve: 1
Alasdair: about 273

I swear that kid has had a constant stream of nasty coming out of his butt all day long. He's also been pooping at night, but so far so good with the absence of The Rash. He must have gotten into something that made his gut rot because no one else has any tummy issues. And seriously, that kid is worse than a dog. He eats anything that he finds anywhere. You'd think I never gave the kid any food. I do, really! On a plate and everything! But I think he prefers the convenience of food on the go. You know, grab it off the table take it to the living room, drop some, take more to your room, drop some, go dig up some grub you stashed in the girls' room three days ago, etc.

I can tell it was Monday without even looking at a calendar.

Michaela: 1 accident
Maeve: 1
Alasdair: 3

It was just one of those days, you know? Maeve crying every 5 minutes, a poopy diaper, a trip to the pediatrician for check ups and shots for both little ones, a poopy diaper, another poopy diaper, Doodie destroying everything he gets his little hands on, poopy diaper. Rinse, repeat.

it's been a busy diaper day today

Michaela: no accidents!
Maeve: 2
Alasdair: 5

We (I) gave Michaela the Milk of Magnesia this morning and it took a good 6 hours before she had a BM. I think she ended up having 2 or 3, which isn't bad. Last time I took it I could barely stay out of the bathroom for about 4 hours! :) Probably TMI, huh?

I think maybe on Tuesday I'll give her another dose and see what happens. I'm not convinced she's cleaned out.

And then with Doodie, I'm not sure what's up with him. He's had a ton of just little squirty poops every couple of hours. So far we've kept any impending diaper rash at bay. We'll just keep him as clean as we can and watch it for any change in color or smell. The last thing I need right now is a Doodie with a case of enterocolitis!

A new trial for the weekend

Michaela: 1 accident
Maeve: 2
Alasdair: 1 1/2

Michaela's all backed up again, so we're going to try the milk of magnesia tomorrow morning. I was going to give it to her tonight, but I decided I didn't want her up all night using the loo. So we'll stick around the house tomorrow and keep the washing machine free for chucking her "accident" clothes into. And Doodie's got some kind of yellow nasty stuff that he's dumping into the diapers. It hasn't given him a rash yet, but I think he could use some firming up before it does end up in another flaming bum.

So tomorrow it's MoM and fiber for Michaela, and bananas and cheese for Doodie! :)

Beet scare

Michaela: no accidents!
Maeve: ?
Alasdair: ?

After dinner tonight I had the little ones in the bathtub and Michaela came in to use the toilet. She went #2 and then headed back out to the kitchen to finish her dinner. When I walked past it I noticed that the water was all pinkish-orange and the log was all magenta colored! ACK! For a minute I was scared to death that we had a real problem with Michaela now, but then I remembered that Mike cooked beets for dinner last night and the girls loved them. They'll eat them all up just to get the pink pee and poo. Ta da! Crisis averted. :D

Fruit-Eze, I'm gonna give it a try!

Michaela: 1 accident
Maeve: ?
Alasdair: ?

Back to the office for me today! But Michaela had a crapper accident right before bed, so I made her drink some juice with Miralax in it. But on one of my online HD groups I heard about this stuff called Fruit-Eze that I want to try. It's basically just a jelly made with prunes, plums, raisins, etc. and has a ton of soluable and non-soluable fibre. Supposedly it tastes good, and 1 tbsp on some toast gives like 5 grams of daily fibre, which is like 25%!! And I like the idea of it just being fruit instead of chemicals and laxatives. It's kind of pricey, and it looks like you can only get it from their website, but I'm going to give it a try. Woo hoo!

Days like today were the reason I started this blog to begin with

Michaela: 2 accidents
Maeve: 4
Alasdair: 3

Seriously. I mean, 9 poop things in, what, the 10 hours between they time they woke up and the time they took baths tonight? So, at least once an hour I was changing a poopy diaper or wiping my 7-year-old's ass. ugh. Every time I turned around I got a whiff of something nasty. It's amazing how much crap can come out of the back end of someone who weighs less than 30 pounds. Poop Poop Poop and more Poop. Not to mention the extra dry hands from all the washing and scrubbing. I can't wait until they move out, sort of. :)

So, I tried raisins

Michaela: no accidents
Maeve: 1
Alasdair: 1

I went ahead and attempted raisins. Normally I don't have any issues feeding my kids raisins, but I know people who avoid them like the plague because of what happens in the poop department after their kids eat them. Yeah, they just don't DO that to my kids. I mean, Maeve had a slightly loose stool, well, it was firm in the middle with kind of a soupy layer on the outside, but it wasn't that bad. And it didn't do a darn thing to Doodie. I think maybe I'll just start keeping notes on what works to loosen up my kids and what doesn't. So far it looks like this:

Miralax: no
Plum juice: no
Raisins: no
Leafy greens: sometimes

If it's not one, it's the other

Michaela: no accidents
Maeve: 0
Alasdair: 1

Maeve and Doodie keep going back and forth missing poohs. I think it's something they worked out during naptime one day. How can we make mom's life revolve even MORE around poop than it already does? Let's throw in chronic constipation for us all!! Yay!

It's a Flaxy Kind of Day

Michaela: no accidents
Maeve: 1
Alasdair: 0

I'll have to try to feed the kids some bran or flax tomorrow. It's not good for any of them to be going this infrequently. Ugh. I'll see what I can put on the menu that will disguise flax. Oatmeal for brekkie, PBJ for lunch with flax in the PB, and maybe spaghetti for dinner? Man, that's a lot of fiber for one day.

Maeve's on the fritz

Michaela: no accidents!
Maeve: 0
Alasdair: 2, with evidence of his poppy seed breakfast muffin

So, I was going to post that I didn't change one single poopy diaper today so I didn't really care what their counts were, but I got a call from my husband with an "emergency situation". (He's currently at a party with some friends and had to stop to call me.) Yeah, the "emergency situation" was his negligence in reporting the poop to me before he left. Somehow I think he needs to get his priorities figured out. ;)

But it seems that Maeve is on the fritz now. She's only been pooping about every other day which is not good. We've started giving her the Miralax now, too. I'm just not sure what it is with these kids. I think maybe we'll move out to the country so we can just put them all out to pasture. There's fiber in grass, right?

Turpoopen

Michaela: no accidents!

Maeve: 1

Alasdair: 0 (ack!)

Okay, so you know how there's that dish called the Turducken where you put a chicken inside a duck and put that inside a turkey and then cook it? Well, I've invented the Turpoopen. You see, when you change a diaper you can sort of roll it into a ball and use the tabs to close it up, right? Well, Maeve wears Pull Ups. Since Pull Ups are made like underwear, you can either pull them up or down, or you can pull the sides apart for emergency situations, whatever that is. All poopy diapers are emergency situations in my house. Anyway, there aren't any handy velcro tabs on them, so once you've taken it off it's just sort of open for all the nasties to go flying onto the floor on your way to the trash can. SO, I started taking Maeve's Pull Up and rolling it inside Doodie's regular dirty diaper (since I usually change them in tandem) and use his tabs to seal that sucker up! Viola! Turpoopen.

Victory!

Michaela: no accidents!
Maeve: 1
Alasdair: 1

So, last night I had some issues finding Ilex. I went to our local big chain pharmacy and they didn't carry it (not that I expected them to) and they couldn't order it from their distributor because it was "back ordered". But the pharmacist suggested going to the Children's Hospital outpatient clinic and asking for it, because even if they didn't have it in stock they could get it directly from the inpatient pharmacy which obviously DOES have it since they hand it out like candy there. Good plan with one caveat. I didn't want to drive 30 miles away to get butt cream. So I called the hospital in town and asked their pharmacy if they could get it. She said they could order it and it would be in the next morning! YAY! I went and picked it up today and paid LESS than the same tube would be on-line from the company's website, even without the shipping. Sa-weet!

So, if you're looking for Ilex, try your closest hospital pharmacy. I bet they can get it for you!!

Of course, Doodie's rash is gone now. But at least we're prepared for it's inevitable return.

The flame continues

Michaela: no accidents! (and she's firmed up a bit)
Maeve: 1
Alasdair: 3

So, he keeps pooping too frequently which keeps the irritation going. And I AM OUT OF ILEX!!! And I'm having a bitch of a time getting some. I was going to order it off their website, but it's $10 for a tube and another $10 for shipping!! Um, no thanks. And my local pharmacy doesn't carry it and can't get it from their distributor. So I'm headed to the hospital to try their outpatient pharmacy. They can at least get it transferred from their inpatient pharmacy and get it to me. Wish me luck! Because Doodie's balls need all the luck they can get right now! Poor baby.

Here's what NOT to feed a kid with HD...

Michaela: no accidents! But she's had Montezuma's Revenge since Sunday morning...

Maeve: 1

Alasdair: 3

Yogurt from Safeway that expired on December 20!!! Seriously, I bought some YoBaby yogurt at Safeway on Saturday evening, and my two littlest ones each had one on Sunday morning. I just happen to notice later around lunchtime that the date on it was from before Christmas. That is so freaking nasty. So my husband took it back to the store today, asked for a manager and told them about the gross expired yogurt, and also threw in the fact that it gave both of my kids diarrhea. Yay. Hirschsprung's and diarrhea DO NOT MIX. So now Doodie's got a huge red rash on his butt and his balls. It was so bad this afternoon that he wouldn't let me even pick him up. He would put himself in a pike position so that he wasn't sitting on my arm with his rear. So we loaded him up with the trusty Ilex and vaseline miracle cream, gave him some Motrin and let him lay down and sleep for an hour or so. He seems to be in less pain now.

There SO needs to be a book on HD and the diaper rash involved with it. Because even if kids are really healthy after their pull-through operations like Alasdair has been, we still deal with the rash. There's just no getting around it. Maybre someday when the kids are in college i'll get around to writing that book...

Cleanout efforts have begun!

Michaela: no accidents!
Maeve: 0
Alasdair: 1

So, our weekend plans got cancelled because of the flooding down in Chehalis, so instead I decided to load up Michaela with the MiraLax. She's getting 2 capfuls three times a day, about 100 g every day for the duration of the weekend, starting on Friday night. So far it doesn't seem to be doing anything, but I'll keep it going anyway. If I don't see anything happen this weekend then next weekend i'm going to go for the milk of magnesia. I have no idea how I'm going to get her to drink it. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it I guess. :)

Back to the humdrum once again

Michaela: no accidents
Maeve: 2
Alasdair: 3

Tomorrow is my office day at work. I haven't been there since the middle of December and I am SO looking forward to it. I need some grown up time, meaning no babbling, whining or screaming, no diapers and food flung all over my kitchen, and 2 solid hours on the bus to read a book without interruption. Ahh.

And on a more sour note, my sister in Chehalis is trapped in town by the flooding going on there. I was going to go down to watch my niece in a gymnastics meet, but seeing as how the freeways aren't open and the gym has half a foot of water in it (or it will shortly) I've got no reason to go. So I've deemed this weekend "Colon Clean-out Happy Fun Time!" I'm determined to get M all cleaned out so we can move on to the maintenance portion of this little program. I should probably make sure we're all stocked up on t.p. :)

Clean bill of health!

Michaela: no accidents
Maeve: 1
Alasdair: 2

Doodie had his 6 month check up with his surgeon at Children's that did his pull-through to fix his HD. And guess what? He's perfect! yeah, I know I'm biased. But it was like a 4 minute visit and we don't have to come back for another check up for a WHOLE YEAR! yay! By then we'll probably be in the thick of potty training, so we'll see what the Hirschsprung's has in store for us then. But for now, all is normal with his bum.

Oh, and he almost weighs 22 pounds (at 18 months old!). And this is with him being on a high fat/butter/cheese/eat whatever the hell you want diet for the last 6 months. How lucky we'd all be to have his metabolism. Geesh!

Revelations and Resolutions

Michaela: no accidents!
Maeve: 1
Alasdair: 3

I had a revelation today about Michaela's blockage problem. For the last 3 years I've been told to just use the Miralax and leave it at that. Originally she was only 4, so her dose was like 1 tsp a day. We've recently upped her to a full adult dose of 17g per day. I have been thinking about asking our pediatrician to refer us to a GI and I was at the Children's Hospital website looking at their Gastroenterolgy page when I noticed a pamphlet on Constipation and Encopresis. Lo and behold, I find out that the dosage of Miralax that we need to give her to actually CLEAR her blockage is 100 GRAMS PER DAY for three days!!! Why were we not told this years ago?? So, this weekend we're going to try that and see what happens. If we don't see anything miraculous happen, I'm going to try the milk of magnesia for three days and see what that does. I'm really hoping that once we can get her blockage out and keep her cleaned out, then these accidents will stop. That's my 2009 Resolution: help my daughter to regain bowel control!

On a related note, the pamphlet also mentioned that we could use mineral oil to clean her out, by giving her 1/2 cup of mineral oil 2-3x per day. How gross is that?? Can you imagine drinking 1/2 a cup of mineral oil? It makes my stomach turn just thinking about it. ugh. That will be our last ditch effort there.