The Hottest Month... Or Maybe the 2nd Hottest Month

It's been a couple of weeks, hasn't it?

Cases of the coronavirus are spiking around here, so we're mostly just staying in and trying to keep cool. We're walking a few nights a week, but it's usually around 8:30-9 PM because even though it's still in the 90s then, not having the raging sun blazing down helps a lot.

The city of Austin is on watering restrictions, and I don't actually know whether we are or not, but I'm watering our two apple trees and the fig tree every night, because I really don't want them to die. One of the apple trees is pretty new; the other one made it through last winter, but it certainly didn't seem to have much extra "oomph" right before spring, so I don't want to risk losing that one like we did its original partner. The fig tree is the newest, I believe. And I'm also watering the bushes I planted a couple of years ago that are just now starting to bounce back from the shock of being transplanted. At least we don't have a lawn to irrigate, so you're welcome, environment.

Speaking of the environment, one of the things my brain has been doing since we've been reduced to hanging out with all the same people all of the time is thinking about what kind of house I'd want if I could design and have built my own place. And since we have an extra lot in the back, we could conceivably do it... in a few years, assuming the economy doesn't tank much harder and the economic recovery doesn't stall out. In other words, there are too many variables right now, but James and I have been discussing what we've learned from our previous living arrangements and what we'd do if we could just start over from scratch.

I say that, but, actually, if we could do ANYTHING we wanted, we'd probably go somewhere that we could build at least a partially-submerged sand bag or straw bale house or an Earthship or something like that. Where we live, as close to the lake as we are, and with how chock full of limestone our ground is, using an in-ground home as a cooling measure would probably be a bad idea. Heck, it's a toss-up if many lots around here (including ours!) can house a septic system.

Anyway, in the next few years, as D decides what to do in terms of living arrangements and working and whatnot, we might try to build on the land we already have and sell this, downsizing to a cheaper home that has been designed especially for us. We'll see.

On the Mal front, it's been... something. We went through a full week and a half of trying to get some advice from the doctor's office, because after the magnesium citrate (Mal was SUCH a trooper!) he just stopped going again, and we were right back where we started. I contacted the office about five times over ten days before saying, "It's been three weeks since he's had a bowel movement, and so just never mind. I'm going to figure it out myself." After that temper tantrum, I contacted Mal's pediatrician to tell HIM what all was happening. I was the maddest because Mal had been doing everything the doctor told him to do, and I felt like, whereas we'd made some progress the few days he was taking the magnesium citrate, in the weeks following, he'd probably just gone right back to where he'd been before.

Mal's doctor reached out to the gastroenterologist, whose office contacted me almost immediately. Apparently, the first week I'd messaged them, the doctor had been out of the office (and no one else can figure out a plan??), and he apologized profusely for taking several days to get back to me when he'd returned. Funnily, he recommended using ExLax 1-2 times a day for two weeks, and I'd just bought ExLax the day before, after I'd told them I'd do whatever I had to do.

Well... the ExLax didn't really do anything except make Mal's stomach hurt. The doctor had also mentioned a suppository, which I told Mal we might have to try. He was horrified. He insisted that he couldn't deal with that, so I asked him if he'd rather try the magnesium citrate again. It had been 3 weeks since the first round, and maybe he'd forgotten how much he hated it, so he said okay to that.

This time, he drank the whole 10-ounce bottle in 24 hours instead of three days. And guess what? NOTHING. So, sadly, we had to try a suppository. It worked in clearing a bunch of stuff out. But guess what else? 24 hours later, he wasn't going again; but he was leaking again.

SO... I was looking at some stuff online and saw for the first time a couple of massages recommended for constipation relief. Couldn't hurt to try, right? On Tuesday, July 14, I slathered Mal's belly with coconut oil, which he did not like, and massaged it for ten minutes. I did it the next morning, too, without the oil. He said it was actually a lot more comfortable WITH it, so later in the day, when we did it again, we went back to using coconut oil.

Mal didn't have a bowl movement from Saturday through Wednesday, and Wednesday afternoon, I told him he might have to be resigned to another suppository to help him clear some more stuff out. But then... he went!

This might be correlation rather than causation, but we've been doing two ten-minute massages per day, and he's had some action every day so far. We're continuing to put Miralax in a couple of drinks per day, but otherwise, it's just the massage.

I read an article recently that said it can take months or even up to a year to recover from encopresis (that link is one of the best articles I've read about the condition, if you're interested... the part about parenting advice certainly rings true!), so I think that my frustration earlier this week was more that in my real life, I'm an "it's broken; let's fix it pronto!" kind of person. But in medical stuff, I'm not a huge interventionist. I tend to think that a cold will pass, an ache will probably wear off, a fever will break... and I give it time. I just need to do that with this. If twice-daily hang-outs for massages and sitting with Mal in the bathroom three times a day are what it takes, okay.

There was one time this weekend when, with a 48-hour period, Mal had had 3 doses of ExLax, a bottle of magnesium citrate, AND a suppository. I want to give his system a chance to relax. And this seems to be helping.