I should have waited for help, I had no idea what I was in for. You just stick it in and wait-- or that is what I thought.
It all started a few day ago when Valynn and I started asking each other, “When was the last time you changed a poopy diaper for Benjamin?” When we started to do the math, we came up with it being about a week. So we started to watch and wait. With each pasing day I was starting to get more and more concerned. The kid is going to explode!-- I kept thinking to myself.
I knew we had a Dr. appointment coming up so I could ask about it. To the best of our remembering, it had been about a week and a half since his last bowel movement by the time we went to the Dr. I brought up the topic, the Dr. asked me some questions, and the boy answered most of them-- he was happy and his tummy wasn’t rock hard full of poop. The poor kid got a…. well, rectal exam. Poor guy, if I had only know that would have happened I wouldn’t have brought it up. Okay, yes I would have. I was worried. I was glad something was happening. The Dr. had some good news after pulling his little finger out of my son's bum. He said, “Well, there’s no hard dry poop in there,” as he showed me the trace of poop on his glove, “and his vault isn’t full either so he must just do a really good job of using all the food he gets.” The Dr. and I discussed a few options came to the conclusion that we would use a suppository.
Ok… they didn’t cover suppositories in the classes you take before you have babies. I know what they are. I grew up in a house with a dad that worked in the endo lab (you know the cameras down you throat and up your butt). Anyway, I guess I didn’t ask enough questions about them. The Dr. told me to use a little petroleum gel to lube it up, and that I might need to hold his legs together to keep it in, then it would dissolve and he should poop in the next couple of hours. The Dr. warned me it might be a big one. He even told me to expect a blow out. “If nothing happens, come back in and we will investigate a little more.”
But that is not what happened. And where my story begins.
I got some suppositories, the ones for little people-- but we were busy, and the doctor didn’t make it sound like we needed to hurry and do it, so when we finally got the girls to bed and the boy was crashing hard, Valynn and I decided we would do it the next day. Valynn had to go to work in the morning and the boy and I were still sleeping, so it didn’t happen before she left. When I woke up, I checked to see if he had pooed in the night, and still nothing. So, I figured it was time. It didn’t sound hard-- you just stick it in, right? So, I got ready for this fun new adventure: With petroleum gel on my finger, I pulled out of the little tub what looked like to me a birthday cake candle with no wick. I have to admit, I didn’t know how this was going to help much at all, but that’s the magic of medicine.
I didn’t think he would really even notice this thing go in-- so I lubed up the suppository and with my free hand tried to wrangle his legs and feet so I could get at my target. He is a very wiggly kid! Without being too graphic, it went in. We took it nice and slow and at first he didn’t seem to mind what was going on at all, and it was done. Tadah! As I tried to then get his legs down while keeping them together that candle wax thing shot out of him like a rocket. Not kidding! It was in, then just like that, it was out! A little shocked, and not happy about it, but not put off to much-- I mean it went in easy enough… I will just put it back in! This time it was not as un-noticed by my little friend and he squirmed and made some funny faces. How could blame him? This time I held it in for a few seconds to make sure it would stay and then, moving with some urgency, I moved his legs down and together. I even went to squeeze his bum cheeks together and as I looked down to admire my work… there that damn little thing sat-- right there on the changing table like I had never put it in. Not happy, either of us, we tried it again-- him crying and me close to it!
This is a bum we are talking about… a cute little one, yes, but it is a bum! Hence to say, it was starting to smell quite badly. Benjamin had a pooing problem, not a farting problem, and as the week and a half had passed, his farts had gotten stinker and stinker.
As I wemt to put in the suppository for what I was going to make sure was the last time (even if I had to put my finger in the poor guy’s bum) he pooped and pooped and pooped: On me, on him, and all over the changing table. And then, he decided that he couldn’t do one with out the other, so he peed all over everything.
As I sat there, poop in hand, thinking back to the doctor’s office, thinking about where this had all gone wrong, and how this had gone nothing like the way it was supposed to, I then realized: I should have waited for help.
