This is my 3rd born, Spiderman. Aren't his cheeks delicious? He has had these things since he was a baby. I can't even begin to count how many times I have gnawed on, or kissed, or blown raspberries on those babies. As I previously said on his brother's post, he is my little analyzer. We call him little professor sometimes, because he studies everything. He was our surprise. After having our perfect little girl and our boisterous boy, we thought we were done having kids. (Ok, dear husband was more done that I was. And, when asked, he will tell you stories of how I made this one happen. We both know that he (Spiderman) was God' plan now.) Anyways, he came with some bumps in the road.
After nursing this little one for 8 months, we discovered that he had food allergies. He was allergic to dairy, eggs, and peanuts. Along with all of this, he suffered from chronic ear infections starting at age 9 months, and had to have tubes put into his ears. He also has asthma. This little guy has been through a lot. He isn't dying from some terminal disease, but everything is tailored around his menu.
I would just like to take a brief moment to point out that all of this is not coming from a hypochondriac of a mother that tries to shelter her child from everything, and overly babies her son. I am not a germaphobic person. I don't disinfect my kitchen counters and table before and after every meal. I don't believe in every syndrome that the world has made up. I think we can make excuses for everything. We found out about the food allergy thing when he started to get hives from head to toe, projectile vomited multiple times, his toungue swelled, his eyes swelled, and he couldn't stop sneezing. All of this from one piece of cereal taken from my husband milk filled bowl. Something was seriously wrong with this kiddo.
We have taken it all in strides though. I relearned how to cook for the family. I have found recipes that everyone likes and we eat them over and over again. We have found a couple fast food places that have things he can eat. All is well. Sort of.
Last week our other son was on his way to the doctor for a misfortunate happening with a bush (read the last post). On this same morning, Spiderman woke up with a blood curdling scream at 6:30 in the morning. I am not a morning person, so when my child began screaming at 6:30am I became panicked as if he had done it in the middle of the night. He was hysterical. I couldn't calm him down. All he could say was my head, my head hurts. I could tell by the cry that this was some serious pain he was having. My husband ran in and helped me get him from the top bunk and take him to our bed, because mommies bed has healing powers. Usually.
He layed their in pain all day. I had given him everything in my arsenal. He had Tylenol and Motrin together every 5 hours. Nothing would dull the pain. He had no movement of his neck. He wouldn't sit up. He wouldn't turn to look at me. He was in trouble. We were already going the doctor that afternoon for his brother and sister, so we just picked him up and brought him along. My dear husband came home early to help me with him. He picked Spiderman up and brought him to the car. The poor little guy screamed from the pain the whole time. He cried the whole time at the doctor. Anytime I would shift in my seat or try to turn him around to get him more comfortable, he would cry.
The doctor saw all of them. First, he looked at Spiderman. He instantly became very worried. This came on so suddenly and he was in so much pain that he knew something could be very wrong. After looking him over he decided to wait a few minutes and decide what to do. He went over and diagnosed the other 2 kids with poison ivy and wrote out the prescriptions for that. Then he went back to Spiderman. After trying to get him to nod his head or look around again, he decided the best idea was to go to the children's hospital ER. He was very concerned that Spiderman had spinal meningitis or an abscess in his neck.
Our friends happen to call dear husband while I was in with the kids. He had decided to stay out in the car and sit with our littlest one who happened to be napping in her car seat. I had been calling him and keeping him posted on what the doctor's thoughts were. When our friends called we had just found out that we needed to go the ER. They were happy to meet us at home to take care of the other 3 kids, and off we went.
You know things aren't good when your doctor calls ahead to the hospital and they are expecting you. Then they whisk you right back to the room and have your baby lying on a table and having a cat scan done within 15 minutes of arriving there. I tell you what, you want horrible thoughts of "what if this" or "what if they find that?" going through your mind, then watch your son get a cat scan. It will increase your prayer life. I promise.
They then had him go to get some X-rays. This was the part that made me chuckle. There were two guys in there early, early 20's that were the tech's. They came in all cheary and asked Spiderman to pose for the x-rays. He was doing great. Then they needed a picture of a bone that could only be seen if your head is completely back. You have to be looking straight up at the ceiling for at least 10 seconds, without moving in order to get this picture. The whole problem is that my son couldn't move his head without extreme pain.
Now let me tell you a little about Spiderman. He is STUBBORN! Even when in the best of moods, which he wasn't even close to, it is hard to get him to do things that he doesn't want to do. This very young x-ray tech was clearly a bachelor, clearly one who didn't have kids, and was out of his league when it came to my son. He tried and tried to get him to cooperate. It wasn't going to happen. My husband and I smirked at each other, because we knew it was going to take a miracle to get this to happen.
Finally, it had occurred to me that they didn't offer him a sticker or toy. I knew from past x-rays that our family has had, that they are stocked back there. I kindly said, "Maybe they would have a Spiderman sticker for you if you move your head for them." The light turned on for the tech and he offered a treasure box with toys. This worked. He got him to move his head.
After that the ER doctor came in checked him out. He wasn't too impressed with Spiderman's symptoms either. He left to find out what the tests said, because the next step in the plan of action was a spinal tap. This is a very painful procedure that us done to get a sample of spinal fluid and test it for spinal meningitis. I was more scared of this test than the actual problem.
About an hour later the doctor came back in, and something started to happen. Spiderman started to snap out of it. He started to talk to us. He started to move around and wiggle on the little hospital bed. He moved his head. The doctor noticed too. He left us for another period of time and then came back to check to see if he was still getting better. He was. The doc left it up to us if we wanted to do the spinal tap or not. He thought that he was getting better and didn't think it was 100% necessary. We agreed.
We still don't know what caused the pain. He still has it to some degree. All the tests came back negative. We are keeping him in prayer. He is and always has been in God's hands. As one wise doctor said to us last year, "I put them back together, and God heals them."
Something to think about. During our time at the ER, my father-in-law was at his church softball league starting a game. He knew everything going on and had asked all the guys to pray. About 20 guys got together to pray for our little guy. It was at that same time when Spiderman started to feel better. I don't know what God did that day. I don't know if something really serious was happening or not. I do know that at one point of my day, I was in tears for my son. We were crying together, him for his pain, and me for him. I choose to believe that God had intervened for my son.
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