Poop Doctor

After over a year of screaming and crying during almost every poop, we finally got a referral to a pediatric GI specialist at Kaiser for Miranda. We went to the appt today. It was in hayward so I piled all the kids in the car and got there a few minutes early. We were called in right away and only had to wait about 10 minutes in the room for the doctor (or nurse practitioner as it turned out.)

Almost immediately it seemed like the doctor had a stick up her butt (which would have been appropriate in such a clinic.) Without so much of looking at Miranda she started asking me questions while typing. She asked questions about what her poop looked like over a year ago and how much mirlax she drank each day. I kept explaining that we had been through a lot with Miranda already and I didn't remember all the details from that long ago. This seemed to piss her off. When she started telling me the solution was Miralax and that I could mix a whole container of milk with it and just give it to her all day long, I started getting pissed. I didn't wait for a year to be told the same thing I was told a year ago. When I tried to explain the problem with miralax (no consistency, no improvement, going off for one day led straight back to the screaming and crying), she just got more annoyed. Which upset me. After more accusatory questions about what a bad parent I was, I lost it. I started crying and essentially yelling at her about the extreme pain my child was in and how she (the doctor) was being extremely rude and how I just wanted my kid to be able to poop without screaming and how she must have woken up in a bad mood and how come no one in one whole year has examined her butt or suggested anything else and how if Miralax worked so well I wouldn't even be there. At first she got defensive saying how she couldn't just "fix her" like magic, but when I started to get up to leave she started to "get it". She examined her ("she seems to tense up when you touch her belly or butt"...no shit lady). Then she put in a lab test for blood work and some xrays.

Miranda did great through all of this and even allowed her to stick her finger up her butt. I was amazed! Parker started to get upset when I got upset and Elizabeth was running around the room like a crazy person for most of it.

I'm upset that I got so upset, but I'm glad I did because she would have just sent me home with a suggestion to get more miralax had I not. She tried to make me feel better as I was leaving by saying 25-30% of the kid population has pooping problems.

She also told me that I couldn't even begin to potty train her for bowmovement until she could go 6 months without screaming. Considering she is starting preschool in 9 months where she has to be potty trained, I'm a little nervous.

After about an hour when all three kids were basically hysterical and there was no sign that the exam would ever be over, I packed up the kids and stood up saying, I have to leave now.

Then we went off to Parker's gymnastics class and then home. When we got home, Elizabeth sat down on the potty and went poop. Miranda, seeing that, did the same, on her own with no screaming or crying. Crazy shit. Pun intended.