Hi, Mark!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

MH>  With Hirschsprung's, the only way you can have a BM
MH>  is either when the pressure builds up enough behind
MH>  the transition zone or enemas.


          Ah... I thought that might be the case.



MH>  We have had to use a combination of Miralax and enemas
MH>  to keep things under control.


          You do what you have to do, eh?  Sounds familiar... [wry grin].



AH>  A month or so has already gone by, and I'm 'way behind
AH>  in answering my mail.  But please be assured we haven't
AH>  forgotten you....  :-)

MH>  Me too.  :)  Thanks, I appreciate it.


          Glad to hear that!  In SURVIVOR we answer when we can &
whatever you have to say won't be dismissed as "old news" within
the next few days....  ;-)



MH>  There is no update as of yet.  We are still doing our more
MH>  agressive approach to keep him managed and will then probably
MH>  get another xray to see where we stand.


          So the "transition zone" has in effect been stretched
by the lack of response lower down, and now you're trying to get it to
shrink back again with more aggressive use of laxatives & enemas??  I'd
say it's worth a try....  :-)



MH>  Hopefully, it will have gone down in size enough to perform
MH>  the operation with the least amount of bowel removed (only
MH>  the section with no nerve cells)


          I'm not a great fan of surgery either.  I reckon it may be
necessary at times when there is no other long-term solution... and that
does seem to be how things are re the portion with no nerve cells.  But I
understand why you'd want to keep any surgical intervention to a minimum in
this case.  As a parent I've balked on occasion at somebody's idea of a
dramatic rescue mission... and eventually forced them to admit they could
probably use a kinder & gentler way of achieving the same goal.  If
laxatives & enemas don't work, you'll know you tried.  But once a bit
of anatomy has been removed you can't put it back.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+