Potty Training: The Final Frontier

For some reason I feel like potty training will be the last big hurdle in our adventures with Hirschsprung's. Although in my head I know differently. I have to. I'm a mom of an HD kid. For the rest of his life we'll be watching for signs of constipation, diarrhea, infection, malnutrition. It won't ever end. But I see that as a daily maintenance sort of thing. Potty Training. That's a huge deal! Not only for "normal" kids, but especially for HD kids. I just hope my kid can physically do it! I know he's ready to learn. But how frustrating is it going to be when we start worrying about having a bm in the potty and he just might not be able to? Based on our first feeble attempts, I'm not so sure we're going to have an easy road of it.

I bought a bag of candy corn pumpkins. You know, for bribery. We brought the potty chair downstairs near the toys and the TV. We're all set! He's 3 months past his 3rd birthday and now in preschool. And he's interested. He knows when he's peeing in his diaper. I've seen him hold it until the moment he gets into the bathtub, picks up the rinsing cup, points right in there and lets it go! yeah, he's ready.

The first couple of times were a huge success! He sat on the potty = 1 pumpkin. IF he pees on the potty = 2 pumpkins. If he POOPS on the potty = anything he wants, including a pony or a lifesize robot.

He actually got rewarded twice the first day for pooping on the potty with handful of pumpkins each time. But then i realized that he's not actually just having a bm. The stuff is literally just oozing out of him. I mean, I rewarded it anyway, but this is not good. It was very thin ribbons of poop too. I don't think that's normal. I've seen the size of the poops from his sisters and I know what these kids are capable of! And it's near imossible to see that from a diaper. But in the potty I could tell, and it makes me nervous.

For the past couple of weeks he has been having 6 - 8 dirty diapers a day, none of which are of any significant size. They stink to high hell, but they are probably just the results of the constant oozing. And then maybe once a day he'll empty out his entire body into one poor unsuspecting diaper. Good LORD.

When he gets back from his dad's this weekend, i'm going to put him back onto the dreaded laxative, stock up on Desitin and more vasaline in case we have to bust out the Ilex for a weepy rash, and see how that goes. If in a couple of weeks things aren't getting better, we may have to go in to see our surgeon. I'm concerned that he might have a stricture or something physical going on that's now allowing the stool to move through his colon and keep a normal shape/size.

Also, Michaela has been on a bowel clean out program since late July, meaning we put her on a laxative and double dose of miralax for 1 solid week (her bum was so red I actually had to use the diaper cream on HER!). Then after that week we have her on daily miralax. Things were going great until last week. Her tummy started hurting a lot, and i think she might be getting plugged up again. I really need to find a time we can get her back on a laxative for a few days as well, but between soccer and school, and knowing that the laxatives don't actually kick in for her until about 2 days in, I can't find a time to do it without putting her in danger of having an issue in the middle of class or at the soccer field.

The things we do for poop in this house! Geesh!