Baboon

This is another entry about the contents of my son's diaper. You have been warned.



My poor little guy just can't catch a break. After all the difficulties with chronic constipation, he is now plagued with the opposite problem. The antibiotic that is so good for curing ear and/or lung infections? Also kills all of the good bacteria in the gut. Antibiotics + no beneficial bugs = battery acid coming out of Q's bunghole.

After just one diabolical diaper, changed almost immediately, he was sporting a butt so red that baboons were calling to join his troupe. After the second, again changed as soon as it happened, he was sloughing off skin. After the third, I called the pediatrician. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything they could do for him, short of stopping the antibiotic. But he was only on day three of a 10-day cycle, so the meds hadn't had a chance to do their thing. Besides, I live in fear of creating one of those superbugs if we don't finish our antibiotics. I'm a little obsessive on this issue. They did recommend some super duper (and obscure) diaper rash ointment, but it wasn't available at the MegaMart. Rats!

The next morning, I frosted his bum like a cake with Balmex and started him on the BRAT diet which I learned about on John & Kate Plus Eight. Bananas, rice, applesauce, toast. It is supposed to bind everything right up. I did a little research and found the BRATTY variation, which adds tea and yogurt. Since Q is allergic to rice (I know! Who's allergic to rice?), my version was the BATTY diet. The name makes me laugh and even better than that? It worked!

As a matter of fact, it worked so well that I convinced myself that he was over the unfortunate side-effects (even though he still had several days of antibiotics left) and started just feeding him regular fare. With disastrous results. Back to all battery acid all the time. This time it was even worse. I guess I didn't catch one as quickly as I usually do (when pooping is a rare event, you usually notice when it is going down), and the poison poo got on his junk. Oh! It hurts me to look at it!

At this point, even the mildest of wipes make him cringe and cry. Tonight I gave up wipes entirely and just put him in a warm bath. When he was done, I pretty much dipped him in Balmex from the waist down.

Only one more dose to go. Maybe having ground zero in his colon is a good thing. Maybe all of the bacteria that was causing him to clog up has been killed and the good kind can take over. Man, I hope so.