Belly Pain

About 2 months ago, Jake was having pain in the L groin area when he was running. It was bad enough that he continued to limp while walking. I looked closer and saw that there was a lump in his L groin. It continued to hurt that day, so I called and talked to one of the docs that I work with. Since this "lump" was movable, he didn't think that it was a hernia. The pain didn't really get worse, it seemed actually to get better through out the day. With more inspection at that time, because I can't leave well enough alone, I realized that the lump moved up and down, then I realized that it was his testicle. I was able to push it back into his scrotum, then back up without any pain. I was able to do the same with the R testicle. Knowing that this was not normal, but that it wasn't really causing him anymore pain, I figured that I would just talk to Dr. Galvin about it the next time that we went in, or at his next year visit, which would be the end of June.

Earlier this week, Jake came into our room at 0530 am having RLQ abd pain and had a fever. I immediately thought appendix. He was quite restless and just kept rubbing his lower abdomen. I gave him some motrin and later he was actually hungry, so I thought that it wasn't his appendix. After he got dressed, or just riding with the seat belt on in the car, he kept telling me that everything was too tight. "My clothes are too small!" he said, and they really weren't. Then he had a few bouts of diarrhea. So at this point I am thinking he just has cramping from the diarrhea.

The next day the pain continued and it was Friday. At this point I am thinking, hernia because of the testicle thing and we still have the possibility of the appendix. I called Galvin's office because I didn't want to go into the weekend with a possible problem. We got into Galvin's and he listened to my whole story, then I showed him the testicle thing. His face said it all...that is not right!! More conversation between us about this and he says: He is going to need surgery and that they will just secure the testicle to the scrotum so it isn't able to go up and down like that. He is at risk for the hernia and even a testicular torsion (where the testicle gets twisted and it cuts off the blood supply causing acute pain.....emergency surgery). He asked what local urologist that we'd like to use....I like the peds one in GR because we have been to him for Jake (and Amaya) before. Dr Steinhardt it is... Dr Galvin is writing to Dr Steinhardt that this is an undescended testicle, even though it really has descended. Apparently, in Galvin's eyes, this isn't that common. It is common to have an undescended testicle, just not one that goes up and down. Once again, leave it to my kids to be "not the norm".
So now we await a call about our consult with Dr Steinhardt, then we will get an ultrasound ( Dr S. likes them done in GR at a pediatric facility...fine with me, we like to look at the fiber optics that they have on the ceiling, plus the waiting room in that radiology dept. has a big playroom for kids). At this point we are just waiting. Then after that if he still thinks that Jake needs surgery, they will refer us to a pediatric surgeon.
Dr Galvin said that the abdominal pain that Jake was having was unrelated to this stuff and that it was viral, however, with the history of all this, the visit was well warranted. Poor little Jakers and his "peeps" problems.
Today his abdominal pain is minimal and he is back to eating all day long. I am not even kidding, Jake eats all the time, but chooses healthy things so I don't mind a bit. Hopefully his pain will be completely gone tomorrow.