I got a call from the school around 9:30, only about an hr. after he had gotten there. The nurse said that he was running a low grade fever & just wasn't his normal self. I told the nurse that I would finish up at work & be there as soon as I could. I called his Dr's office before I left the office & they said they could get him in @ 10:30. Perfect. I left work & headed to the school to pick him up. When I got there, he was sitting in the office & looked the same way he did when he left the house that morning. Very tired. We got in the car & headed to the Dr. After the Dr. checked him out, he found that one of his tonsils was larger than the other. He was worried that Hank may have an abscess, so he wanted to refer him to an ENT and I needed to take him that day. This obviously worried me, and it worried Hank. He heard abscess and thought it was something that was going to have to be drained or removed & he was scared immediately. The nurse called an office of an ENT in Ft. Thomas & they said they would see him right away. So, we checked out & off we went.
By the time we got to the ENT office he was wiped out. He really hadn't had much to eat and it was close to lunch time. He just laid on the sofa in the waiting room and did not move. I felt terrible for sending him to school at this point. After I filled out his new patient paperwork, the Dr called him back. She found that one of his tonsils in fact, was larger than the other but it was not an abscess. Instead, she thought that he had mono. To confirm that it was mono, he had to have blood work. She also said that he was very dehydrated. Not enough at this point to hospitalize him, but if he did not get liquids in his system that she would have to admit him. She told us to go for ice cream & then head over to the hospital to have his blood drawn and she would see him back in her office in 2 weeks unless something changed. We went to Greater's & got ice cream & filled Creag in on what was going on. He was in Chicago for training at the time so I was all alone & pretty nervous of what was going to happen at this point. If he was hospitalized, I was going have to figure out what to do with the other kids and that worried me a little.
After we had our ice cream, we headed to St. E's for blood work. He was a nervous wreck & so was I. He is not good with pain/needles & I was so unsure of how he would react. We did the whole pre-registration process & waited for the phlebotomist to call us back. I tried to reassure him several times that it was nothing to be too worried about. I told him that it didn't hurt but a tiny bit and for a split second & then it would be over. When he sat down in the chair & they tied the rubber band around his arm he started crying. I asked the nurse if he could sit on my lap & she said that he could. She started to try to draw his blood again & he freaked. There was another man who had come in the room to get his blood drawn so he told Hank he could watch. We got up & watched this stranger have his blood drawn. I wish I could say this helped put Hank's mind at ease, but it didn't. It ended up taking 4 of us to hold him down so they could draw his blood. It was a mess, he was crying & I was crying. There is nothing worse than seeing your child scared & in pain & not being able to do anything about it. It was awful, but he did it, they drew his blood & we were done. We could finally head home & relax.
He was pretty sick the remainder of the day, but I was able to get him to continue drinking fluids so he was not admitted into the hospital, thank God! I kept him home from school the following day as well. I felt that he still needed one more day of rest. He slowly recovered that day & was back to his normal self by that evening. We got the results back from his labs and they were negative for mono which shocked us all. He was so bad off & so tired that I just don't understand how it wasn't a positive result. It must've just been a very, very bad virus and I'm glad that's behind us.
Yesterday, he had his follow up appointment with the ENT. She said that his tonsils were still at plus 2 & his lymph nodes were still a generous size. We talked about his sleeping habits, his attention span, his eating habits & if he's tired a lot. When I answered yes to most of her questions, she recommended a tonsillectomy. This didn't surprise me at all because his Dr has always said that he has large tonsils & he has always snored. She said that it was not anything that had to be done right away because he will have to miss a week of school. She said that she'd just have to see him back 30 days before the surgery. I think June will be the best time to have it due to school & baseball so I scheduled his follow up at her office for May 15th & hopefully he'll have his surgery early June. I really hope that this helps him in the future. I feel like he's so young that I just want him to have this done now to prevent problems in his future. I pray this surgery leads to a happy, healthier Hank!
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