Nothing worse

There is nothing in the world worse than a child suffering, and when it's your own child, it just magnifies it by like 1000x.

On Monday, my son (who is 10) began complaining of a headache. I didn't take much stock in it since it wasn't that horrible I figured he'd just tweaked it in his sleep or something. Tuesday, he is in a lot more pain so I call the doc and make an appt, because he's now having neck trouble and I was concerned about possible meningitis. I take the girls to school and head to the clinic. The doc (our normal pediatrician who sees the boy on a monthly basis for ADD) checks him out and decides it's a virus and prescribes Tylenol and sends us home. The rest of the day every 3 hours the poor boy is screaming and crying in pain. The Tylenol isn't working.

We managed to get through the night and head back to ER this morning after I drop the girls at school. They can definitely tell he is in a lot of pain, so right off the bat they give him an IV with fluids and morphine and draw some blood. A while later they came back and inform me that his white blood count is 21- too high typically for just a virus. Even though he didn't have a horribly sore throat, the doctor decided to do a strep test to rule that out and then if that was negative we would look at "other concerns". After what my family went through with Samantha and her cancer, it is my biggest fear so of course my blood ran cold. I did my best to put on a brave face for my son but inside I was screaming, "Not my son!". Unfortunately I know too well that bad things don't just happen to other people anymore, and that lightning CAN strike the same family over and over. I think the doctor understood this and she could do nothing to reassure me yet.

One of the longest hours of my life waiting for that test result.

THANKFULLY- she came running into the room an hour later with a smile on her face and said excitedly "It's strep!". I believe her fears were the same as mine because the mutual relief between us was pretty palpable. Another hour of IV antibiotics and more waiting for this and that and after 6 hours in a 6x6 cell- I mean blessedly private room (a rare commodity in the ER)- we were free to go with prescriptions for Tylenol3, Penicillin, and Motrin in hand.

Tonight the boy is resting comfortably, playing his DS while the girls stay away so they don't get his germs and I am resting too, still riding the little bit of high leftover from my special tweet last night, waiting for the People's Choice Awards.

Oh also I sort of kind of found out when my husband is coming home, but it wasn't good enough news to make my day better, so, whatever to that.