You don’t know shit!

That’s what I want to say to Ryan’s gastroenterologist.  You don’t know shit!! 

About 6 weeks ago, around the time that I went back to work, Ryan’s poop changed.  I talked about it in an earlier post, but basically she went from pooping 1 time a day to at least 6 times a day.   On some days there wasn’t one diaper that didn’t have some stinky little gift in it.  And the consistency changed too.  Ever seen poop foam?  Well, I have and it’s gross.  Ry’s poor little pooper was so raw and chapped that she would cry when we wiped her.  She has the permanent scent of Desitin attached to her now.

So, when we went to the feeding team appointment that I talked about in the post “Three appointments in 2 days”, we asked the gastro doc about her change in poop.  We brought him a diaper and the first thing he said was “Well, it’s not C. diff”.  C. diff stands for Clostridium Difficile which is a type of infectious diarrhea.  I’m not sure how he determined this so quickly (I guess just by the look and smell) but he did and didn’t do any tests on the poop.  He told us not to worry and to call if it gets worse.  So we continued to take care of her little pooping butt as best we could.

So two weeks ago, when Ryan’s cold ended up turning into an ear infection, she was put on an antibiotic by our regular ped.  We knew something was up when Ryan’s poop improved on the antibiotic and got worse when she finished with it.  Around the same time, Katie read in her pharmacy newsletters that being on Prevacid can make people more susceptible to C. diff a nd Ryan is on Prevacid.  We also knew that being in a hospital can lead to all sorts of infections (staph, MRSA, C. diff) and Ryan was in the hospital about 2 weeks before this all started.  I bet you can guess where this is leading, right?

Yesterday Katie brought Ryan back to our ped for a follow-up for her ear infection.  The good news is that the ear infection is gone!  More good news is that our regular ped actually listened to us and sent Katie over to the lab with a poopy diaper for some tests.  And yes, Ryan has C. diff.  So while I am happy that we have a reason for her change in poop and can treat her with medication for this, I am absolutely furious at her gastroenterologist.  The one person who is supposed to be the expert on shit, doesn’t know shit.  She went 6 weeks with this, not only with the possibility of causing her little gut some damage, but also possibly exposing anyone who has changed her diaper to it… and you don’t want C. diff.

So that’s the scoop on Ryan’s poop.  We hope to see some improvement really soon.  She has her MRI tomorrow for her eyes and I’ll let you know how that goes at a later date.