another flare up

Malakai's hernia flared up for a 3rd time this afternoon, for apparently no reason at all. The first 2 times it happened he was sitting on the potty chair (which is not put away until his recovery). Today, I put him down for his nap, he fussed but then started reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and calming down. A few moments later while I was filling out some paperwork I heard him yell and then cry. I went in and he was sitting in his crib crying.

I picked him up to comfort him and realized he had a dirty diaper, which I figured was the source of his discontent. So I put him down to change him and he started to grab + rub at his tummy. I thought he must have a stomach ache or gas. I cleaned him up and then he really started to get upset and that's when I noticed the hernia bulging. When I tried the techniques Dr. B told us about to get it back in, he screamed more and writhed in pain.

The 2nd time he had a flare up I held him close and it went down. I tried it again but he just kept clinging to me and breathing in short-quick bursts like he was trying to cope with the pain. I tried a few more times to push it in but it seemed to make it worse. We both cried and I called Ben to come home. Dr. B told us that if we couldn't get it to go back in after 15 minutes that we should head to the Emergency room, where they'd probably admit him and likely do surgery right away.

I turned on Finding Nemo and held him in hopes that he'd relax and it would go in on it's own. He was literally clinging to me as tight as he could when he fell asleep. Malakai NEVER falls asleep in our arms and especially not watching tv. Never. I figured he was escaping the pain. Ben got home 5 minutes later, we checked the hernia and it had gone in on it's own. Praise God!

I called our surgeon's nurse to let her know what happened. She is going to talk to Dr. W about it tomorrow and give me a call. He may want to see Malakai to evaluate his condition again before we go in for surgery on May 12th.

Please be praying with us that he doesn't need emergency surgery and that we can have the time we need to prepare for his surgery. This came on quite unexpectedly, he hasn't had a flare up for the past 6 weeks and we weren't expecting him to. I keep trying to figure out how it happened, perhaps he tried to climb out of his crib or he just sat down wrong. There's really no way to know, but I'm going to be watching him pretty closely when he goes to bed tonight.