Our First ER Visit

Last night we made our first ER visit post-transplant. The reason? Poop!

Noah has always had strange looking and very foul smelling poop. At first it was attributed to either a virus or the meds that killed off his intestinal villi and gave him a carb intolerance. When that seemed to get better and yet his poop was still "odd" we decided it must be the medicine. He's taking several serious medications that I'm sure have to mess with your gut in one form or another. Then yesterday....

Noah has been extra cranky the last several days and from what I could tell, it seemed he was having a tummy ache. This worried me as a tummy ache and poor eating can be a sign of rejection but when I mentioned it at his weekly clinic visit they said he was doing fine. The crankiness continued and yesterday out "pooped" (a small attempt at lame humor on my part) the pictures you see below. The color on the pictures doesn't give it justice. This poop was WHITE CURDS with some PURPLE CURDS mixed in. And lets not forget the green slimy booger looking stuff. Now, it can't just be me, but this is not normal baby poop! And don't even get me started on the smell. It's not normal smelling baby poop. It is by far the worst thing I have EVER smelt. And I've smelt some seriously nasty things in my life, but that's an entirely different post.

But I digress...

So I emailed the pictures to Alison. I needed a second opinion. I hate paging his PCP for stupid things and I needed to know this wasn't stupid. And since I trust Alison and feel comfortable enough to contact her (even for stupid things... Thanks Alison!), I sent them on. Now, my FAVORITE Transplant Coordinator is expecting a baby (YAY!!!) so I was worried these nasty pictures would make her sick, but she was kind enough to take a look and was as surprised as I was. She confirmed that I should in fact call his PCP.

I really like Noah (and Lilly's) Pediatrician. Dr. Samson-Fang is wonderful. So I paged her and she asked if I could send her the pictures as well. Once she had a chance to look at them, she called me back. She said that while she does everything she can to keep families out of the ER, she felt very strongly that we needed to go and just make sure that the purple stuff wasn't blood or tissue. (We are all too familiar with worrying about NEC pre-transplant so I understood her concern.)

So, I called Emily his TC here at PCMC and gave her a heads up. Gathered all his papers, packed him up, and off we went.

I was very pleased once we got there because both Dr. Samson-Fang and Emily had called to tell them we were coming and that we couldn't wait in the waiting room. So we got right in without waiting. Several Doctors came to check out the poop including a GI Specialist and he thought that since the tests showed no blood or tissue, he was fine. We could just follow up with Dr. Samson-Fang later to see what's causing it to be so weird. But he really wasn't worried at all. He almost seemed intrigued since Dr. Samson-Fang was going to send him the pictures.

We also tested his blood to make sure his Cyclosporin levels were still good in case he isn't absorbing as he should be and then we got an echo. Denver requires that anytime we go to the ER we need to get an echo to rule out rejection. So we got one and all was well. His heart looked just as it did on Thursday with no decrease in function or leaking valves. So off we went. In total we were there about 3 hours. But the time passed by so quickly because we didn't really have to wait for anything. I must say it was the most pleasant, and by far the quickest ER visit I have ever experienced. Now don't get me wrong, ER visits are never pleasant. But since all was well and it wasn't a huge headache, it was as pleasant at an ER visit could possibly be.

So, no need to worry. All is well with little Noah. He just has the strangest poop I have ever seen.
What do you think?...