Prayer Request

We took Ryan to a pediatric surgeon on Wed after being referred by the GI doctor concerning his bowel problem. The surgeon confirmed that all of the pooping problems are from his Hirschsprung's disease. Looking back, we now see that we have been a bit nieve that Ryan's problems were behind us. As the surgeon said, once you have Hirschsprung's, you always have Hirschsprungs - and explained to us that Ryan's colon will never be "normal". After another thorough rectal exam (not fun for Ryan, but he is getting so used to them, as he just takes his legs right up off the exam table and waits for the doctors to investigate the area while the doctor is still listening to his heart!!), the surgeon advised that Ryan's muscles in that area are very tight. Also, she said that after looking at his barium enema, stools are just floating around loosly, so in short, the end part of his colon is too tight to pass stools, while other parts of the colon are not doing their job to get the stools compacted and down to the end (this is such a fun subject to read about isn't it?). Anyways, this is why Ryan cannot poop when he wants to and why poop comes out when he does not even know it is going to come out - I guess stools just keep building up inside his colon until there is too much and then they seep out around the tight muscle area. Enough of the details...

On Sept 11th, Ryan goes in for a biopsy of his colon at PCH - unfortunately he has to be put under anesthesia. If the ganglion cells are not present, they will have to schedule another surgery to remove more of his colon. There still is a good chance that all of the needed ganglion cells are present and his muscles are just tight - I guess this is common to Hirschsprungs. In that case, other measures will have to be tried to loosen up the muscles and try to get his colon working a bit better.

Thanks for your prayers....specifically for the biopsy to go well and the next step to be very clear, as well as for Ryan's self esteem, as this 3 yr old potty training age is a hard age to have a problem with bowels that he can't control - he is starting to get frustrated and embarrassed.

Thanks!
Bakers