In a much quicker update than I was expecting to have when I mentioned the restroom issues Mal was having yesterday: I took him to the doctor today. He had an x-ray. I can't show you the image because I don't have access to it, but here is the official description: "There is a nonspecific nonobstructive bowel gas pattern. Prominent colonic stool burden with redundant air-filled sigmoid colon. No suspicious calcifications are seen. The osseous structures are unremarkable."
To put it in layman's terms: My son is full of shite. His entire large intestine is stuffed. There are other things the doctor showed me on the x-ray that I won't go into here, because I know TMI when I see it, believe it or not.
I'm a medical minimalist, and I'm not sure I would have thought to take him to the doctor yet, if it weren't for some very wise fellow unschoolers in the Austin area. I reached out and asked for advice, and explained that I was not interested in the advice I've heard from some parents, to the tune of: "Make them clean it up if they soil their pants," and "Clean their bottoms off in a cold shower. I did it to my daughter twice, and she started going in the toilet."
I don't like those ideas because they're punitive. Even the "experts" who say, "Don't get emotional, but do make them clean it up. It's a natural and logical consequence," it's still a punishment. There's almost no other area in Mal's life where I insist he clean up a mess he's made with zero help, and this is actually a lot more involved than putting up Legos. It also requires a certain manual dexterity in order to clean without making a bigger mess.
And the cold shower thing? I don't want to take a cold shower. Even if I do something totally dumb and get myself very dirty, I would prefer to be comfortable when cleaning up. Why would I subject my child to something I myself would find miserable?
Fortunately, there are many like-minded parents in this group from whom I sought collaborative advice. All were in agreement: He knows. He's already stressed. You don't have to talk about it or make it a big deal. Two or three recommended I take him to the doctor and ask for an ultrasound. A couple tagged a pediatrician who offered to help me if I didn't have a family pediatrician.
We do, and so I made an appointment. I told the doctor that when all of this started, months and months ago, I think it *was* a behavioral thing. Mal would hide in his room instead of going to the bathroom, and just work really hard to hold it in. He's never just pooped his pants. He just didn't want us to see him working so hard NOT to go to the bathroom. But over time, I think this built up to the point that it crossed over into a physical problem, based on everything I read and then other people's input.
And today, we verified it. He has a medical issue that we're going to tackle with... medicine. I already feel bad enough about any frustration I showed him over the cleaning and the monitoring that we've had to do. So on the way home, I told him that the doctor confirmed that this was a problem inside of his body, and we're going to take care of it. That I appreciated how hard he's been trying not to dirty his pants, but it's not his fault if it happens, and he's such a good boy, regardless.
Imagine how much worse I'd feel if I'd tried manipulating him into a behavior that his body currently renders impossible. I'm grateful to be old enough to "know better" and reject bad parenting advice when I see it. Even if Mal were just a little booger who was crapping his pants intentionally, the fact is that there's always a way to approach solutions like you're on the same team with your children. I wish I'd realized this sooner, when D was much younger.
Changing the subject slightly: It WAS every bit as exhausting taking Mal to the doctor, then downstairs for an x-ray, then back up to the doctor's office as you might think. He complained in the lobby that he wanted to go home. He complained in the patient room that he wanted to go home. He cried a LOT in the imaging lobby that he would just lie on the floor out there and they could bring the camera out to take a picture there. He took a death grip on the chair when the gentle and patient technician came out to call us back.
One good thing about having the mask (#COVID19) was that Mal pulled it up to cover his eyes, too, so he wouldn't have to see the x-ray. It was incredibly quiet and non-threatening. Still, Mal was upset the whole time and insisted later that it was awful and he'd never talk about it again. He vacillated over whether or not to see "the picture," then just didn't care when we got to look at it.
After the doctor's office, we went to Target to get a LEGO set I'd ordered him for pick-up and we had to wait in a very long line to get into the store, even just to go to customer service and get out. THEN, because I'd promised my family In N Out, we had to wait in a VERY long drive-through line for that. Both moved pretty quickly, but by the time we got home, I was TIRED.
Mal, though, seemed to get a rush of energy from the adrenaline of the day, and has been bouncing off the walls pretty much nonstop since. We've been home six hours and he's jumping on the couch. I don't usually feel like an "old mom," but I definitely do today. After care-taking for such an emotionally wrought child for a good hour at the pediatrician's, I was ready to crash. Not so with my kid. And now he wants me to go play LEGO Minecraft with him, so I suppose I should do that. I'm actually ready for bed right now, but... guess it's time to be Alex.
Whew!
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