One More Time

Almost 2 weeks ago Nathan went to Texas Children's Hospital and had his first full colonoscopy (his past procedures were called sigmoidoscopies...) The prep was brutal- he had lunch the day before then a clear diet till bedtime while attempting to drink an entire bottle of myrolax (it's a powder so you add a capfull to 4 oz of liquid...)  It was absolutely absurd and ended with Nathan (and me) in tears.
I tried to make things fun for him, so I bought a whole bunch of Popsicles, frozen lemonade, and we made jello jigglers (none in red though cause that might look like blood). I even made soup so Nathan could eat the broth- he really did such a great job considering he didn't understand what was happening.
His favorite part (if you can have one) of all these procedures has been the toys- I love that we go to a children's hospital and they are completely equipt to entertain kids. He loves this one big rig there and plays with it every time.

I was able to back with him to the actual procedure room and hold him while he breathed in the gas (the kind that makes you fall asleep). Then I had to leave so they could do the IV and put him fully under.
They struggled to get the IV in so he had a lot of bandages where they attempted, but other than that things went well.  He was super sad and angry when he finally woke up which they said was normal and he just wanted to go home.
The doctor found a lot of ulcers, so he's pretty positive he has Irritable Bowel Disease, just not sure of the specifics.
We went in earlier this week to take some x-rays where they looked at his upper GI tract.  Nathan did surprisingly well with drinking the barium (it's white and they put chocolate syrup in it) so he drank his chocolate milk really quickly.  They said the test could take up to 4 hours depending on how fast a kids digestive system is.  After 30 minutes they took an x-ray and saw that it was almost perfect already...they were shocked- I wasn't.  Things moving too fast through Nathan was why we were there in the first place!
We'll go back in next week to have a follow up with the doctor and determine the specifics of our next step.  We know it will involve some new medicine which will hopefully help.  We're just hoping and praying that now that we know more he'll start to feel better.