I have slept in stiff hospital chairs, skipped meals, cried from fear and joy. I am becoming an expert on my son's condition. I am a strong advocate and have had to make some life changing decisions. So when the surgery is complete and they say your child is healing faster than normal, you breathe with a sigh thinking, hoping that the storm is over.
But that is never the case...
The last few days he was in the hospital, he just had that certain cry that made me think he was in pain; however according to the doctors he shouldn't be. However, if you think about it, originally they were giving him narcotics for pain when he had the IV, but now that he doesn't have the IV, the doctors stopped him cold turkey and are only giving him Tylenol orally now. (You'd think if you just got out of surgery and if it was you or me, that they would have us on some stronger stuff than Tylenol, let alone ease us off the medication rather than cold turkey.) So my mother's intuition kept ringing and I tried to explain to the doctors but they just brushed it off.
So upon getting discharged and returning home, I informed my husband of my suspicions. He than experienced one night with Orion home and the following morning he called the Pediatrician explaining our concerns. The Pediatrician was also confused on why no medication was given, so he told my husband to take Orion to the nearest hospital to get evaluated. After waiting for what seemed like several long hours, my husband called me to tell me that they were being sent home saying that the ER doctors believe nothing is wrong, so they came back. Nonetheless upon leaving the hospital, a nurse was nice enough to recommend Mylicon, a gas reflex over the counter medicine to maybe help relieve some of that pain and or bowels. So we searched several stores until we were able to locate a small bottle - upon giving it to him it seemed to relieve his pain for the moment.
Although almost a week later, we still felt he was in pain, so this time we set up a Pediatric appointment for his personal doctor to evaluate him and he found something! When evaluating Orion, he believed that Orion's liver felt larger than normal. So he immediately stepped into action and ordered x-rays for the same day, and then requested us to come back to discuss the findings. All in all, he believed that the liver was enlarged, which is in relation to the heart going haywire, so he immediately called the cardiologist and we had an appointment for an ultrasound the following day.