My son was 2 1/2 years old. An obviously good walker by this point and very active. One day, he started walking like he was drunk and would miss climbing up on furniture by several feet. I took him to his pediatrician. They took a blood sample and sent us home. The next day, I called the doctor’s office and they said his doctor was out, but that they would look at his labs and get back with me. As we waited, my son was getting worse. While giving him a bath, he just suddenly fell backwards.
It was so scary. I called again later that day and the nurse said his blood work was normal. I refused to accept this answer. Luckily, they had a doctor on call from our city’s Children’s Hospital. He all of the standard questions…”did my son accidentally get into something poisonous? a chemical under the sink, etc?” When I said no and described all of the new symptoms, he told us to go immediately to the ER. They did more blood work and CT scan and still couldn’t find anything. The last resort was a test of his spinal fluid. The test showed meningitis. They admitted him for 3 days, immediately started him on some pretty serious drugs, and we just waited to see if it was viral or bacterial. We were lucky. It was viral and my son had no last effects. (Add into this whole scenario that I was 7 months pregnant with our second child.) It was a very emotional week, but I am thankful for my persistence.
Now a second scenario with the same son. But now he’s 16. Friday night football game, he’s marching in the band and playing his trumpet. Feels a little woozy, but otherwise fine. That night he passes out in the hallway at a friend’s house. Comes home and lays around all weekend. Says he can feel ‘sloshing’ in his chest. I was thinking pneumonia. I took him to his primary doctor on Monday morning and he thought it was just a pulled muscle. I asked if we could still go ahead and do an xray. Thank GOD for the xray. He had a collapsed lung and was building fluid (blood) up in his chest cavity. This ended up being the first of 10 spontaneous lung collapses for my son. His last one was 2 years ago. It’s all due his height and weight and there no way to know when one will happen. They say he should outgrow them when he’s about 40…
This boy has obviously given me several grey hairs over the years.