Recently, Kam got VERY sick. It all started with a fever. Nothing else. Then a couple days into it, his face sorta swelled up and he lost all his color. It looked like when he was stung by a bee on his eyelid. Weird. By now, I had taken him to the doctor twice, just to be told each time that we needed to come back in a couple days if the he still had the fever.
Because I pretty much have a doctorate on web md, I went ahead and diagnosed him myself. I
always assume the worst so I was convinced it had to be some type of cancer. Spencer told me to stay off the internet.
Day 7 rolls around and he still has the persistent fever, swollen face, and pale skin. He has also started to complain that he can't catch his breath, and when he sleeps it hurts to breath. We finally got in to see our regular doctor, who at the appointment, I tell him we are not leaving until he gives me an answer good or bad. After he examines him he tells me his tonsils are gigantic (which we already know), his right lung sounds
off, and heres the kicker: his spleen and liver are
quite enlarged. I think I stopped breathing for a minute because any hope I had that this is just a virus, is now gone. He reassures me that it is
probably just mono, but he wants a chest x ray, and a pile of blood work done to rule out the "scary things".
I am a mess, so we head home to get Spencer for moral support (and to help the nurses hold Kam down for blood work). They do the x ray first, then the lab calls us in. Kam freaks out completely, but they get what they need and we head home with a very sad and very sick boy. Doug (my awesome Father-in-Law) meets us at our house and gives Kam a blessing. Then we wait.
The doctor calls us a few hours later and gives us some good news. The x ray looked normal. Some of the labs were back, and they found some "interesting" things. His white blood count was very high, but the lab tech thinks the atypical cells are just infection cells, not cancer cells. The doctor wants a second opinion, but reassures us that he is 95% sure he just has mono. His liver also showed some damage, but not in the hepatitis range. The mono test takes a couple days to get back, so we need to wait for the official word. We are soooooo relieved.
The next day, we get the mono results back and they are positive. The doctor gives us a little info on mono, tells us that because of his spleen being so large, Kam needs to take it easy for 6 weeks. Apparently your spleen can burst very easily and then you can bleed to death internally very quickly. No running, no jumping, no playgrounds, no riding bikes, etc. Wow. Not such a big deal now, since Kam is too sick to want to do anything other than lay, but when he starts to feel better this is going to be a challenge.
Kam got worse the next couple days. His fever got higher and more persistent (not going down with meds) and he developed a barky cough. We were up all night a few times because Kam could not breath. We went back in to the doc and his tonsils were so large they were obstructing his airway, plus when he lays down to sleep his large liver and spleen push up on his lungs, making it harder to get air. They started him on a steriod to shrink them and within a couple hours he started to get back to his old self again.
We are on day 16 of this crazy ride and he is MUCH better. Once he was able to breath, he finally started sleeping like someone with mono. He is still pretty tired, but I am begining to see what a challenge this "take it easy for 6 weeks" is going to be. Next week he heads back to school and then I am pretty sure I will be crazy with worry about him rough housing and popping his spleen. I tend to worry
just a little.
In the meantime, we have been doing lots and lots of this...
And playing lots of these...
And taking lots of these...
And hoping this kid doesn't get the mono kiss of death...
Well, thats what we have been up to the past 2 weeks...I had no idea mono was such a big deal!!!
