Prayers for Ben: Answered

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for my son Ben - it made a difference. This morning he had a colonoscopy where they found and removed a polyp. They believe that was the source of the bleeding. That's an answer to all of our prayers. The polyp and some other biopsy samples they took of some bumps in his intestines are being sent to the lab. We'll know the results in a week or so. I'll send you over to my wife's blog for a few more details.

Ben is doing well and recovering fairly quickly. He's been a real trooper and showed a whole lot of bravery through out the past three and a half days. I'm very proud of him. His bottom's sore from the colonoscopy and the removal of the polyp, of course. Due to his age, they put him to sleep to do the procedure. The waking up process was not much fun for him, so it was a good thing mommy was there to hold him. He ended up taking about a forty minute nap snuggled up with her in the recovery room. He told me tonight that he was glad to be back with his whole family. We're glad to have him and mommy back.

P.S. A correction on my medical terminology on the last post - on Thursday Ben had a meckel's scan, not a merkel scan. That came back negative. This test was in some ways worse than the colonoscopy because they taped him down to the table so that he would not move during the scanning. He definitely did not like that at all. And the imaging device was positioned only a couple of inches above him, adding to it. He cried for a few minutes and then calmed down, eventually falling asleep. It took about half an hour to do the actual scan.

Update on Benjamin

Thanks for your prayers and your patience in waiting for an update. I have spent all day at the hospital. The day was pretty much a waste. Ben feels fine and he and I got to spend a lot of time play together, which was nice. However, the hospital could not seem to make up it's mind what to do with Ben. He is not in pain and shows no outward signs of any issues. They would have preferred to send us home and make us set up some out-patient appointments. Our pediatric practice however, fought to keep us in so that they would have to do something with us, to try and find out what was causing the bleeding. Which we appreciate, though it stinks that we have to sit around in the hospital twiddling our thumbs.

As a brief bit of history that I did not include on the previous post, Ben has had one previous episode before, about 2-3 months ago. It was almost exactly the same as far as how long it lasted, the blood, the blood clot, etc. The first time it happened, it happened in the evening. We talked to the on-call doctor for our pediatric practice. He had advised waiting until the morning to see if the bleeding continued. It did not, so no follow up happened. When it happened again a few months later, it was definitely more concerning.

I'm tired, so I won't go into all the details. Ben will be in the hospital at least through Friday. Tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. he has a merkel scan. Friday at 1:00 he has a colonoscopy. I never thought I would be taking my three-year old to have a colonoscopy. Both of these are for the purpose of trying to figure out where the bleeding comes from.

Please continue to pray that the doctors will discover what caused the bleeding. Also pray for Stephanie and Ben who will be spending at least three nights in the hospital. Poor Ben. He really wanted to come home this evening. He was fine until I left to pick up Will and Ellie from our friends' home.

Thank you for all of us,

Joel

Pray for Benjamin

I would like to ask you to pray for our son Benjamin. Earlier today he had a lot of blood with his bowel movement, including a blood clot. So Stephanie called the pediatrician and got an appointment at 5:00 p.m. to bring Ben in. The result of that appointment is that Stephanie is currently on her way with Ben to Hasbro Children's Hospital, to the emergency room. The pediatrician said it could be a number of things and that the hospital would run some tests. If it had been earlier in the day, she would have tried to get us into see a GI doctor. We don't know how long it will take or if they will have Ben and Stephanie stay the night.

We would appreciate your prayers for Benjamin, Stephanie and the doctors.

Thank you,

Joel

Oral Surgery

Last Thursday, I went to the dentist for my first cleaning and exam in over a year. You would think I would know better than to wait so long with the amount of dental work I have had during my life, but life happened. The last time I went was during the summer of last year when I had a bad tooth ache. The dentist determined I had an infection and prescribe me antibiotics. Around the time of the tooth ache, maybe a short time before, I developed a bump on the gum beside the lower molar that started to hurt. I assumed that the dentist would have said something about the bump if it was a concern since it was adjacent to the tooth that was infected.

The antibiotics seem to work as the pain went away after a while, but the bump never did. In fact it grew a little bit over time. When I went to the dentist everything else was fine but he did notice the bump, which he called a fistula. He was concerned about it, took some x-rays and referred me to an oral surgeon.

I went to the oral surgeon yesterday to have him do an exam. Based on the x-ray and looking in my mouth, he determined that he needed to do surgery. This tooth is one I had a root canal and crown put on while I was in college. Apparently my body is reabsorbing my tooth. He showed my on the x-ray where about 1/3 of one of the roots was already gone. Since this was done about 12 years ago, he thinks this might be due to an infection. If this had happened soon after the root canal, then it could have been attributed to the fact that sometimes the body will reject the packing material as foreign matter.

He also thinks that it was not the antibiotics that made the pain go away but that the liquid in the fistula, which had built up pressure, thus causing the pain, had broken through some of the tissue and were now draining. Thus the pain went and stayed away.

I'm scheduled for outpatient surgery on New Year's Eve, at 10:00 a.m. Yeah! Not. Since I had almost all of my benefits for the year on my dental plan available, he wanted to schedule me so that I could use them this year, and not lose them, and so that I would have all of my benefits next year. I was given a choice of Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve. My first choice was Christmas Eve since I already had that off but after a phone call to my wife, it was changed to New Year's Eve.

During the surgery he will remove the fistula, peel back the gum around the tooth, clean out any infection in there and check the tooth to see if the root is cracked. If it is, the tooth will have to come out immediately. If not, I may be able to keep it. He tapped on the tooth and decided it felt solid, so it would be worth saving if possible. I agreed.

He said I did not have to be knocked out for the operation but recommended that I be. I agreed again. So Stephanie will have to be along to drive me home and care for me. After the surgery, he will have me on antibiotics for two weeks. About a week after surgery I will go back in to have him remove any remaining stitches. After the two weeks on antibiotics he will have me go two more without before coming in to see him again. He will then take some x-rays and examine the area to see if any infection has returned. If not, I should be good to go. If it has gotten re-infected then the tooth will have to be removed.

I asked what the options were if I had the tooth removed. He said my dentist could talk to me about the specifics but in general I could, because the two teeth on either side of the infected tooth were in good shape, get a fixed bridge, or I could get a removable bridge (which he did not think I wanted at my age, again I agreed with him) or I could, once the bone had healed, get an implant with a crown on top, which is the one he would recommend. Once again, I had to agree with him.

The recovery after having my wisdom teeth removed was not a fun experience and I don't imagine that the recovery from this will be much better, except that it will be only one area and not four. If you remember this on New Year's Eve, I would appreciate any prayers made on my behalf.

Pray for Emily and her parents, Mike and Dawn

I know most of my readers also read my wife's blog and most read hers first. But for those who come only here or here first, I would ask that you go over to my wife's blog to read about our friends Mike and Dawn and their newborn daughter, Emily. The purpose of this is to ask you to pray for them. Emily has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Emily Rose
Emily Update
Emily Update #2