The Anxiety of Motherhood

I will admit I am a worrier but being responsible for a tiny person who cannot speak to tell you what is wrong has turned me into a crazy woman. I have already explain a bit about Bryce's bum but here is an update with probably some repetition. So when Bryce was about 2 weeks old I noticed a pimple looking bump right inside his bum. I pushed on it and it popped and green fluid and blood came out. I immediately started looking online of what it could be but Russ assured me I was overreacting. I figured that it would just heal once it was able to drain but I was wrong. It didn't go away but I didn't want to go back into the pediatrician because I had just been in because of my over worrying and the doctors diagnosis of Bryce's crying was colic. My aunt is a PA and said to do warm compresses and put neosporin on it and it still didn't go away. I finally made an appointment with the pediatrician and he took a look at it and squeezed it to drain the fluid again and took a culture to see what was growing. He also prescribed a antibiotic ointment to put on it 2x daily and said to return if it didn't go away. The nurse called a few days later to tell me it was growing staph and ecoli. It hadn't gone away so I returned the next week and he drained it again and put him on an oral antibiotic for a week. It still didn't go away and when we returned a week later to get his immunizations he referred me to a surgeon. The doctor said it is a perianal fistula which is basically an extra tract coming from his gut. The poo is trying to escape through this little tract and causing the infection. He took a second culture and when they called a few days later the nurse again said it was growing ecoli and wanted to know if I had an appointment with the pediatric surgeon and I did but they couldn't get me in for 2 weeks. Again, they said to call or bring him in immediately if he got worse or got a fever.  I called Sherri and she said to call back to the pediatrician and tell them to call the surgeon and see if we could get in earlier. I just felt like we were waiting for him to get an even worse infection. I called and the nurse said she'd talk to Dr. Alba and then call me back. 30 minutes later Dr. Alba called me and said that he had actually been trying to get a hold of the surgeon all day once the culture came back showing ecoli was growing. He said he spoke with them and we could get in the next Thursday because the surgeon was out of town until them. Needless to say I have been worried about him constantly. I take his temperature at least once a day to make sure he doesn't have a fever.We finally visited the pediatric surgeon on Thursday. He looked at it and explained that it was a fistula in ano which is a perianal fistula. It formed by a little gland inside his bum getting infected then it created a pocket of fluid and it needed to find a way to escape making a canal from the outside in. After telling him it had been there for 8 weeks he said that we need to take care of it. So Bryce will be having surgery June 8. The doctor will cut it open and drain it. It has to stay open so it can heal from the inside out. He said he doesn't consider any surgery small but in the grand scheme of things this one is small. The part that scares me is that they have to put him under general anesthesia to do the procedure. I know it will be fine but he is just a tiny little guy. I know that it could be worse. We have friends who's babies have had open heart surgery, sepsis and even born 3 months too early. When I think about all of them it puts this procedure into perspective. The surgery should last about 30 minutes once he's asleep. The other thing that is going to be difficult is the fact that he can't eat 6 hours before his surgery. They the youngest patient first, which will probably be Bryce. Poor little guy is going to wake up starving, I just hope I can keep him calm until he can get the IV. Needless to say I am slightly anxious about this but I am ready to get it taken care of so he can heal.