It's Never Too Early For Your First Colonoscopy!

Proving me to be a fool once again, Chase did not clear out in classic Chase fashion like I was so sure he would. They said, "Miralax." I said, "No problem! Poop is not something that is scarce around here!"

Yeah. So Chase was not a fan of drinking 4 ounces of "juice" every hour. Especially when we had to continue to dose him every 1/2 hour throughout the night. Bryan and I took shifts...It was bad. Chase was tired, we were tired. No one wanted anything to do with juice.

OH. And I got the pre-op instructions in the mail Tuesday afternoon and they were drastically different from what the scheduling guy had told me on the phone. The phone guy said to start before dinner, nothing but clear liquids 4 hours before the procedure. The written instructions said nothing to eat the day before, Miralax all day, nothing to eat or drink 4 hours before the procedure.

Needless to say, I was freaking out, the scenarios running through my mind: a) we'd have to reschedule completely because we didn't do it right and we'd have to go through all of this again another day OR b) we'd have to wait all day long at the hospital until Chase was clear and he had an empty stomach for 4 hours.

So, back to the night from hell. Chase was really good natured about everything...just kind of put up with us as we changed him and tried to trick him into drinking Miralax instead of giving him his pacifier. He just continued to bat away the cup and went back to sleep every time we gave up and laid him down.

The best part of the night (morning? I think it was like 3:30am...) was when I picked him up from his crib, then tried to slide in between the glider and the ottoman to give him the juice. But instead of sitting down gracefully, I, in my stupor, slipped on Goodnight Moon, did a crazy try-not-to-fall dance around and above the ottoman, somehow stepped over it and turned my ankle, did a half twist in the air, and landed on my shoulder and head on the ground by the door. All while holding Chase. I never let go of him (he was fine-- I think a little confused as to why he and Mommy were laying flat on the floor in the middle of the night), and so I didn't break my fall at all. Ow, ow, and damn! I felt so freaking stupid, but I couldn't get up without putting Chase down, so I had to yell at the monitor and hope that Bryan heard me (and that I didn't wake Ian up!). All I could think about was that "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!" commercial. This would be a perfect time to have one of those necklaces on. He saved us-- don't worry. And I'm fine. A little sore. And the Wii Fit is going to have to wait for a while til my ankle is better... :(

Anywho. I called the hospital this morning and the nurse sounded like it wouldn't be a problem. So we went in.

Chase was fine. He's pretty funny as a drunk (those drugs are good!). The doctor said that he could suction out anything that was up there (gross!) and not to worry about it. He carried him back to surgery at 10:30, and then came out to meet with us when he was done at 11:15.

So-- his findings: Chase has swelling and irritation at both ends, his stomach lining is like "leather" (ew?) and he has swollen and inflamed lymph nodules in his lower intestine. All it really tells us is that something is definitely irritating his entire GI tract. He took a bunch of biopsies to send to Buffalo (who knew? I should have told him we would be up there in two weeks...we could have visited!) and we'll know exactly why he has all this inflammation when the results come back. He seemed really confident that anything that he found would easily be fixed with medication, so yay.

That's really it. Chasey drank some milk today and ate some dinner (and Bryan just reminded me that we stopped for lunch on the way home from the hospital and Chase ate 1/2 of our french fries!). He's happy and active tonight and doesn't seem at all offended about the places that we took pictures of him today.


Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. I'm so glad this part is over. Now we can sit around and wait for the next step.