Liam's Flexible Sigmoidoscopy

Waiting patiently for the Doctor to come in. 

Liam had been six months in remission and two weeks after starting transitional kindergarten he started to show signs of a flare up. We contacted his specialist Dr. Davies to see what treatment we needed to start. She put him on the usual 20 mg of Prednisone. After two weeks of no change she decided to put him on 10 days of Flagyl to see if we could get his gut to calm down. It ended up working in the sense of he stopped having 10 bouts of diarrhea a day to 2-3 a day. We had an appointment scheduled within a week, so she said keep him on the prednisone and when I see him I will do a Flexible Sigmoidoscopy. I asked her "is there any prep for that procedure?" She said "nope". I asked her if they were going to put him under for that? Her response was "no, kids do really well usually". I tried looking up Sigmoidoscopies and kids online and found very little. I tried to prepare Liam mentally for the procedure he was going to have done. I simply explained that Dr. Davies was going to put a small camera up his bottom and look inside to see if everything was okay. He looked at me with BIG eyes and said "she is putting a camera where?' "I don't think so mama". Honestly I did not know what to expect or how he was going to react, but I kept being very positive with him.

The day of the appointment he was examined by Dr. Davies. She said she wanted to take a peek inside and make sure we were not missing anything. She was chalking this flare up to be an "emotional" flare due to all the changes he had been through. My heart sunk when she told me this. My child was so stressed from going to a new school, having a new teacher (even though he knew her because sissy had Mrs. Nikki) and making friends. This made me feel so bad and that I failed him. No parent wants to be told their child is sick due to stress. We were escorted into the procedure room. She told Liam to remove pants and underwear and to lay on the table. He was not the biggest fan of being as he called it "Naked" with just a sheet over him. It was the first time I had seen my little guy (who was only 4) be self conscious When the Doctor came in, Liam looked at me with complete fear. I told him I was going to hold him and he asked to see the "camera" I gave the okay to the doctor to show him, thinking it would calm him knowing what it looked like. Boy was I wrong. That kid gave me a look of hell no mom and he tried to get off the table. I quickly layed him down and started talking in his ear telling him to breath. The doctor took that cue and started the Sigmoidoscopy. Overall Liam did a great job. He mimicked my breathing and tried to stay still. The worst part was when she took the biopsy's. He cried and said it felt like several shots were being given inside. The whole procedure lasted no more than 10 minutes. How it is performed is he was positioned on his side and she inserted a flexible tube that had a camera on it into his rectum. She did not go very far into the colon. Just enough to see if there was inflammation or ulcers.

When the procedure was finished, Liam immediately jumped in my lap for lots of cuddles then asked to get his clothes back on. Normally when we are done with our visits with Dr. Davies, Liam will either hug her or high five her. This time however he bolted out of the procedure room trying to get out. Dr. Davies said "Liam your going the wrong way and you have not said bye to me." Liam looked at her and put his hand up as if to tell her to stop and not come closer. He said " I want out NOW and you stay there." I had my dad pick him up and told him to take Liam out in the waiting room where Nana and Sissy were. I think it will be a while before he trusts Dr. Davies like he once had. It made me sad, but I think it broke her heart more. The reason I am writing about this topic is because, I had no clue what this procedure was going to be like. I had worked myself up thinking the worse and when it was all said and done it was not as bad seeing him go through it. He was very brave and not as painful as I thought it might be. We were all so proud of him that he pretty much got whatever he wanted that day and he took full advantage.