Hi all. I have posted here a couple of times about my five-year-old son as he has a tight foreskin with a pinhole opening and I have been told by doctors he needed to be circumcised (he has a problem with accidents during the day, sometimes almost every day, which was what caused me to ask the ped for help in the first place). I did not do this even though the urologist I was referred to was basically implying I was being selfish to let my son continue to have a health problem which would never correct on its own. 
Anyway, last night while he was urinating he complained that his penis hurt and he claimed it was on the bottom about halfway down the shaft. Well, I had his daddy look at it and he didn't notice any redness or swelling so we just assumed he'd feel better in the morning. But this morning when he woke up he came into my room and I reminded him to go to use the bathroom and a minute later I heard him screaming. I ran in there and saw normal urine in the toilet. I was trying to calm him down and then he started screaming again and he urinated pink. After that was done big drops of bright red blood started dripping out of his penis, which, as far as I could see still looked normal! Peeing blood. My son was peeing blood. I about had a heart attack. I know from years of experience how a little blood in the toilet can look like a lot but oh my goodness it seemed like there was so much, and he was crying...
I get on the phone to my husband who had taken my older son out to a cub scout event and told him to come home right away. He suggested I call my brother (who has our other car seat) who might get there sooner but by then I had started thinking. I mean, my first feeling was horrible guilt. I thought, this was my fault, he actually has some kind of health problem and it's all my fault not getting him circ'd earlier this year like the doctors said. But my second thought was, how on earth could I find out what exactly was wrong with my child without the doctors or the emergency room demanding to circ him first? Without them blaming everything on his foreskin and saying they couldn't figure out what was wrong without cutting it off (this was what the urologist had told me, circ first and test him again later)? So I told my husband to just come home and that I would find that time to figure out where on earth we could take him and what we could say to protect him wherever that was. I remembered that someone had posted a number in that tight foreskin thread and so I called Marilyn Milos and thank goodness she answered. I went through everything that had happened and she suggested that for the time being I not actually take him anywhere. Talking to her and going through it again made me realize that his first urine had been absolutely normal, and that if it had been his bladder or his kidneys wouldn't it have all been discolored? So I calmed down a bit. We went out and got some liquid acidophilus like she suggested (in case it was swimming earlier this week that had done it), and kept him hydrated and had him go in water.
This is what I've noticed the subsequent times he's gone. He still screams right when the stream starts (which breaks my heart), but after that it doesn't hurt, he says. And his stream is a bit thicker. I almost wonder if the little pinhole opening is opening up a little bit. After he finishes urinating - and every time since the first time it has been normal urine, no pink - he dribbles a tiny bit of blood into the water. He has developed a little bit of swelling but it went down somewhat. Marilyn gave me the number of an intact-friendly doctor in Los Angeles (about 50 miles away through the traffic, but a few hours of driving is better than circing him for no reason) and he's not in today, or I'm sure, tomorrow, but things seem better enough that I'm willing to wait and see until Monday unless he gets worse.
So I've gone from "oh my god my baby what are we going to do" to kind of cautiously hopeful that his foreskin is just having some difficulty separating or that he pulled on it yesterday and hurt it (he denies this) or both. I just thought I would post my experience in case there are any other moms out there with similar issues, and I'll update if he gets better or if we see Dr. Fleiss. It's just so hard. Your instinct and responsibility is to make sure your kids are healthy first and foremost and to do whatever it takes to help them when something's wrong. A lot of times doctors imply that insistence on an intact foreskin is standing in the way of that, and I feel like that sometimes too...like maybe I AM being selfish. It's sad it has to be that way.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading.
phew mama, I'm so glad to read that your son will come out of this unscathed, you did such a great job advocating for your son!
Yay for you, for driving all that way in crazy traffic and unfamiliar areas, I applaud your dedication to obtain proper medical care for your son! Isn't it amazing, the strength you find to do things you never thought you could do before you were a mama?
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