Tag Archives: bladder diverticulum

When the drugs don’t work

Posted on by

“But I’m the patient!” The words roll of his tongue, and we can hardly argue with him. Not after everything that happened after the surgery.

This is the last medical post, I promise, but I’m writing it because it might help other parents in similar circumstances. And because, I guess, I’m still processing it all myself, and filing the memories in a safe place in my heart.

Everyone told us he’d bounce back from surgery fast. “He’ll be on his feet in no time,” people said. “Kids are so resilient.” I believed them because I wanted it to be true; I’d nod, agree and remind myself what the doctors had said about doing this surgery (on his bladder) while he’s still young.

I imagined him eating jelly in bed, and being discharged a few days later.

The first hint that these things don’t always go to plan was when the surgery to remove a diverticulum took longer than expected. At the allotted time, DH and I nervously positioned ourselves outside the OR, where we’d been told to wait. I anxiously peered through the oblong window, willing the surgeons to appear.

They didn’t.

We went back to the room to wait, for another hour – until finally, the tension was over. Five hours after Son1 was wheeled away, we got him back, half asleep and wired up to medical equipment.

After becoming a pro at calling the nurse, Son1 now wishes he had a call button on his bed at home

After becoming a pro at calling the nurse, Son1 now wishes he had a call button on his bed at home

When the surgeon told us all had gone well, I could have hugged him. He then went on to explain that it had been more technically complex than anticipated; he used words like ‘stent’ and ‘reattaching a ureter’, and, again, I nodded, in full faith that they knew what they were doing.

Which they did. Our doctor is great (he’s promised to take Son1 out for a burger), but what they didn’t know was that Son1 would suffer from the most excruciating bladder spasms – a distressing side effect of catheter useage that can cause severe cramping.

I can only compare these spasms to labour pain. They’d come on suddenly (3 or 4 times a day), and Son1 would scream for an hour or more in absolute agony as his bladder involuntarily contracted. He’d sweat profusely, his hair matting to his head, and at one point – after becoming horribly sensitised to any kind of pain – I was terrified he was going to black out.

The painkillers they administered didn’t touch the pain. Morphine would eventually send him into a drowsy stupor, but the other medicines did little to relieve the spasms. The only thing that worked was flushing the catheter, a procedure only the doctor could do at first. And, believe me, I fought tooth and nail to get the doctor into the room. (I quickly figured out that with all the nurse shift changes, we knew more than they did about how to manage the pain.)

But the truth is, we weren’t able to manage his severe spasms. While he did have long periods of being perfectly fine, when the spasms hit, he was demented with pain, and after seven rough nights, during which DH and I took turns to attempt to sleep on a narrow sofa in the hospital room, we were going out of our minds too.

To cut a long story short, the catheter was removed a little earlier than it should have been, and once we’d got over the hurdle of retraining his bladder to pee (major potty training flashbacks for me), and teaching him that peeing would hurt for a while, the spasms stopped, and he hasn’t had one since. Thank.God.

The thing I want to remember, however, is how brave Son1 was. Yes, he screamed the hospital down (I saw a lady with another child deliberately avoiding walking past the door), and was frequently inconsolable. I’d stroke his hair, wishing I could take the pain away, and cried myself several times as my heart broke in two. But I saw a strength in him that took my breath away.

He walked on day 1; accepted and understood what was going on without question; and really tried to follow the nurses’ instruction to breathe through the pain, until it became overwhelming. I was so proud of him, and for many of those endless hours spent sitting with him, we enjoyed a closeness borne out of his new-found maturity (as well as lots of jelly).

On day 8, they let us go home. I can’t tell you how good that felt, and now he’s bouncing back, like everyone said he would, and I’m beginning to breathe easy that the ordeal is over.

EDITED TO ADD: Six weeks post-op, and it’s like it never happened! As soon as we got home, he recovered fast. It’s amazing how kids bounce back, and move on. As for us parents, it takes us a little longer!

The one in which Son1 discovers drugs

Posted on by

This blog post is coming to you from a darkened hospital room. As I look over at my precious sleeping Son1, I can see the shadowy shapes of medical equipment, a screen with flashing, fluctuating numbers, and his finger – glowing red like ET’s as the sensor transmits his vital statistics.

We’ve known for at least two years that Son1 needed a complex surgery to correct some internal plumbing. He was born with a birth defect in his bladder (a diverticulum) and, today, he was operated on in Dubai to fix the problem. To my amazement, other than not being allowed breakfast, he went along with everything like a lamb first thing this morning.

“Will I get my own room, Mummy?” he asked.

“Yes, you will.”

“And a TV?”

“Yep.”

Hospital food - eugh!

Hospital food – eugh!

“Will there be room service?”

And that’s when I realised he was thinking hotel room, with chicken club sandwiches served Intercontinental-style on a platter – not hospital suite with congealed scrambled eggs and cereal that looks like fish bait.

Then, to his dismay, a nurse handed him a gown to change into.

“I’m not wearing THAT!” he declared. “It’s for GIRLS.”

“Would it help if Daddy wore one too?” I offered, shooting DH a pleading look and at least getting a laugh from my now cross (and hungry) son as we wrestled him into the offending teddy-bear-motif overall with ties at the back.

A few minutes later, the nurse brought the magic potion I’d been waiting for – the pre-op sedative. At first, there seemed to be no effect, until I noticed the grin plastered on Son1’s face.

“I sh-feel diz-shy,” he slurred, with a spaced-out expression. His eyelids might have looked heavy, but his glazed eyes were as wide as saucers. I’m surprised they didn’t start spinning. He then sat up in bed to enjoy the full, trippy effect, and experimented with a few different moves to maximise the dizziness.

“He’s completely high,” DH whispered to me.

“Totally stoned,” I agreed.

“And loving it.”

“So what are you going to dream about?” I asked Son1, who, by now, had dissolved into laughter.

“A duck delivering room service,” he pronounced with a giggle – and that was the thought I held onto as I let him go, into the operating theatre, where he spent the next four hours undergoing (a successful) surgery.

Let’s hope the post-op drugs are just as good.

My brave superhero

Posted on by

If there’s a time when you wish it was yourself who was being prodded, poked and scanned like a barcode, it’s when your child is undergoing unpleasant hospital tests.

We’ve known for a while that my oldest son has – and this is going to sound odd – an extra ear. Not on his head. On his bladder (a diverticulum is the proper name). It’s likely to need a fairly major surgery to prevent kidney damage and so we’ve been making a few trips to City Hospital recently for various tests.

The first of which I’m still traumatised about, because it involved the eye-watering insertion of not just one, but THREE catheters – with no pain relief or anaesthesia. But I’m blogging about the test he had this week because it opened my eyes to a branch of medicine I knew nothing about.

Nuclear medicine.

On the morning of the nuclear scan, I felt so bad telling him the good news – and then the bad news.

“BB, mommy and daddy are coming to pick you up from school today – early.”

“Really!” he grinned.

“But then we have to go to the hospital again, for another test. Nowhere near as bad as the last one, ” I added quickly.

“Awww,” he replied, a flicker of fear passing through his eyes, followed by silence.

Radioactive Man: BB gets special powers

Later, at the hospital, DH and I tried to remain jovial despite wanting to chew our fingernails off. We filled in the paperwork, tried to ask the technician in charge (who clearly didn’t speak English as his first language) a couple of questions and quietly reminded ourselves that this had to be done.

BB, who seemed far less worried than us, kept busy playing Angry Birds (don’t you just wish you could distract yourself that easily?)

He was totally unfazed, until the Filipino nurse inserted the needle – and then all hell broke lose.

“He will keep still, won’t he?” asked the technician, as the nurse injected the radioactive fluid that was to go round his body. “For 30 minutes.”

THIS was the part I was dreading. If he moved, the test would have to be done again. I just couldn’t imagine my darling boy not moving for a whole half hour – not my active 6YO, who doesn’t even stay still while asleep (he sleep walks, even!)

And so started the bribery.

“BB, you have to stay still. If you stay still, we’ll take you straight to Chuck E. Cheese’s afterwards. AND the toy store. You can buy whatever you want.

“How about that 135-piece 3D Titanic model you really wanted? Mommy will help you make it.” [boy, did I regret that one!]

“And Global Village – we’ll go there too. Tomorrow.”

It worked – his panic subsided, his breathing slowed.

“And BB, you know what? This test is going to give you superhero powers! You’ll be like Radioactive Man – for the rest of the day. How cool is that?”

Very, apparently. Enough to keep my little wriggler quiet and as still as a statue – almost – for 30 long minutes while the scan was successfully carried out. Phew!

He may not have glowed green that afternoon, but he is my superhero.