Thursday, January 13, 2011

Um, Please Don't Guess What's Wrong With My Son. Figure It Out And Fix It, Thanks.

I'm sorry to say, blog of mine, that I have nothing much to report today.  Brody is really sick.  :(  I spent most of the night holding him... he would literally scream whenever I made a move to put him down and just wrapped his little arms around me with a death grip.  The death grip didn't loosen this morning... I spent the day in the rocker with him until after noon when he woke up and only lightly fought me as I put him down and my step-mom put him in his high chair to see if we could get him to eat anything.

He soon stopped crying but it was clear he was just really off.  I did get him to get some food down although he won't hardly drink anything.  And this is the boy who will suck down a sippy cup of water in about 5 seconds and want more.  Worried about my guy.  :( 

Because of a pretty constant stream of snot that was really thick and yellow (TMI?  Sorry... I realize not everyone is a mom and therefore would be completely grossed out by this but I can't help it... that's what it was!) I figured he for sure had another ear infection.  Olivia already had a doctor's appointment this afternoon so I called to see if we could get the Brodster in too.  Sure, no problem, bring all your kids and all your money, was pretty much the answer to that.

Olivia and Ava have barley been sick in their lives.  Olivia had pinkeye a couple of times as a baby, and has had a fairly mild flu a few times.  Ava has had one minor ear infection and strep once.  She goes through more bouts of not feeling great and I think this is attributed to (diagnosed by me) her having sleep apnea causing her to be pretty tired all the time, but she's never down for long.  :)  Brody?  Sick all the freaking time.  Poor little guy I don't know what to do for him.

I will say that it does worry me somewhat that his father believes that he is sicker than anyone could possibly ever be in his life pretty much 2-3 times each week.  I know that he sometimes is actually sick, but for the most part, I really see this as a sign of his wimpiness and need to make himself act completely put upon all the time while at the same time freeing him up even more from helping with the house or kids.  I'm sure that sounds pretty mean, but if you would spend a week with him, you'd totally know what I mean.  Anyway, I worry that Brody will have some of this wimpiness in him and I don't want him to! 

But... he really is sick on a fairly regular basis and honestly, no one ever knows what's wrong with him.  It's so frustrating!!!  Since he was born I've dealt with problems with a near constant state of congestion and runny noses, diarrhea at least twice a month, he's had exema, herpangina, the worst diaper rash anyone's ever seen, serious unexplained rashes, and so far in his not quite 15 months of life, 4 ear infections.  What do I do with this boy?  LOL

It just really gets to me because he's had a lot of tests run on him, several blood tests, stool sample tests, culture tests, allergy tests, and so on.  But everything always comes back negative.  He did test positive for an extremely slight peanut allergy, and for awhile everything was blamed on that, but I've always known that wasn't all there was to it and the doctors finally pretty much called everything "unexplained" and let it at that. 

The past couple of days I already mentioned that Brody has had a fever.  I didn't take his temperature, I could feel the fever, but it seemed low, like maybe around 100.  At the doc's office my poor little sad boy had his temperature taken, and I found out he had a 104.4 fever!  I mentioned that I hadn't given him anything since around lunchtime, both because it hadn't yet been 4 hours, and also because Brody is notorious for being as sick as can possibly be until the minute we walk into the doctor's office when he suddenly is the happiest, healthiest boy you've ever seen.  I needed to make sure they saw how sick he was!

I'm pretty sure the pediatrician and the nurse both thought I was a sadist.  The ped said, "give this boy some Motrin before he has a seizure!"  Um, OK.  I'll be accepting my award for Worst Mother of the Year at a little ceremony this Friday.

So back to the Brodster.  The doc figured it was an ear infection.  Nope.  Then she looked at his throat, happy and healthy and the perfect pink.  So she thought maybe the flu.  She shoved a horrible long stick hard up his nose.  I had no warning that this was going to happen!  Brody screamed his little head off and I cried.  I'm so sorry, baby!  Anyway... flu?  Negative.

So what in the H is wrong with my guy?  The doctor said "it's probably something that's going around.  Let's get him on some amoxycillin.  OK, I have no problem there.  I want him better!  But doesn't it seem a little like putting the cart before the horse?  Don't we need to figure out what's actually wrong with him?

I guess not.  For now we assume it's a sinus thing, apparently.  And hope that the amoxycillin clears up whatever it is that's wrong with him.  If not.... back to the doc's on Friday I guess.

Has anyone else gone through this?  I just can't accept "it's probably (insert best educated guess here)," or "we'll just call it unexplained," or "well, all the tests came back negative and he seems fine now so [even though he's been dealing with something crazy for the past 3 weeks] let's just chalk it up to an unexplained childhood illness."  It's my SON!!  I want to know what it is that's actually wrong with him so I can make sure we fix it! 

I love our pediatrician, I really do.  One of the things I've always liked about her is her laid back attitude about things which is the perfect foil for my tendency to assume every fever is leukemia, every rattly breath is the sign of lung failure, etc.  She really does keep me grounded a lot.  And truth be told, much of what I'm mentioning happened over the summer while she was off for 2 weeks and we were dealing with another doctor in the practice.  So I don't want to make it seem like she's not competent, she's really been great for us over all these years.  But when my son has 104.4 fever and it's not an ear infection, the flu, or strep, I want to know what it IS!  I don't want to know what it "probably" is. 

I'm dealing with it right now the best way I know how.  Lots of love and antibiotics and ibuprofen for my sweet boy, and lots of Internet searches to read everything I can find on it.  I'm hoping I find some answers, or at least enough answers to let me calm down about it a little, but if not I'm just hoping that my little lovey boy feels better tomorrow.  So far we're doing better than last night... he's still asleep.  :) 

What did I do to Live My Best Life today?  Just.... tried to Be My Best Mommy. 

Tomorrow:  MRI on the ankle (scared!) and.... I don't know... I guess we'll see what else the day will bring for me!

2 comments:

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  2. awwww...a sick kid is no fun at all! Hoping he feels better!!!

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