Who Would've Thought??

 That This....

Would cause my baby to be admitted to the hospital overnight and give his parents a huge scare!

On Sunday afternoon we had just gotten home from camping in Barstow for the race (which will be the next post). We had the motorhome parked out front and Mark and I were just bringing stuff back and forth to the house. The boys were playing in the front yard, or so we thought. Talan had snuck in the house and found a pack of Bubble Tape (that Mark had bought for who knows why). Mark saw Talan in the front yard acting kind of funny so he asked him what he was doing. Talan showed Mark an empty container of gum. We weren't sure if he had eaten it or what he had done with it but he seemed fine. 

So on Monday around 2pm Talan tells me, "Mommy, my tummy hurts" I had totally forgot about the gum incident the day before and just thought he might be getting a bit of the stomach flu. I tried to get him to go to the bathroom but he couldn't even sit up, he was curled up in a ball and in a ton of pain. Then all of a sudden he was fine. I thought it was really weird but then I just brushed it off because he started playing again like normal. So later, my mom came over to watch the boys so I could run to the store. I get to the store and my phone rings, it's my mom telling me that I need to get home, that Talan is in a ton of pain. I rush home to find Talan curled up in a little ball again. I knew I had to take him to Urgent Care because something was not right. 

When we got to Urgent Care, Talan was once again acting normal, no pain. I explained the symptoms to the doctor and then also told the doctor about the gum. The doctor started to examine Talan and once he started pushing on his tummy, the pains started again. My poor boy was in so much pain. He kept saying "I wanna go home mommy!" It was breaking my heart. I just felt so helpless. So all of the symptoms that Talan had were also very similar to a condition in which the intestine folds over on top of itself. Even though I had told him about the gum they still wanted to rule out the other because the other can be fatal!! So in order to test him they had to put him under and then they would put a small camera up his bottom and see. Well, the Kaiser in Riverside didn't have a pediatric surgeon on call so they had to transfer us via ambulance to the Kaiser in Anaheim!!! Talan was excited to ride in the ambulance despite the situation. It was so hard to stay calm for him when all these crazy ideas where going through my head and so fast!!!

Well we got to Anaheim and Talan started saying he had to throw up! We took him into the bathroom where he did throw up, a bunch of pink globs...of GUM!!! We let the doctor know and then the doctor didn't want to do the test anymore just in case it was the gum causing the problems, but wanted him to stay overnight for monitoring. He got an IV for dehydration and then they Xrayed his tummy. The Xray's showed 3 huge globs that the doctor figured was gum. Well, for gum, they can't do much because it will eventually pass. They gave him some stool softener and told us to get some rest. Talan slept good despite being hooked to an IV. I slept in a cot beside his bed, something that I hope will NEVER happen again. 

In the morning Talan was full of energy and just wanted to go home. The doctor wanted him to eat some food and then go to the bathroom before he would discharge him...let me tell you, I have never seen him eat so much. He knew he would get to go home if he ate so boy did he eat!! About an hour later he went to the bathroom so we were good to go home! What a pain that pack of gum caused us!!!

No more gum in this household!!