Not What I Expected

Last weekend, Jake had his first soccer game of the fall season. He did pretty good. Considering there is third graders on his team, I didn't expect much. He will be lucky if he touches the ball all season. Apparently there are not enough players to fill the teams at Concord, and this is the best solution.

After the game, David was asked to drive the Carr Bros. truck in the Parma Days parade. Tyler was able to ride with him and throw out candy and baseball hats. He was so excited. I decided to ride along too.

I was impressed at all the fun things Parma Days had for the kids after the parade: pony rides, bouncy house, tractor pull, balloon animals- all for free. It was fun.

That night, David was at a bachelor party, and I gave the kids a bath before our movie night- which was Milo and Otis with puppy chow snack. Jake was complaining his head hurt, but I figured it was a headache and he would feel better once he went to bed.

The next day, he couldn't move his neck. He moved like there was a brace around it. Turning his whole body instead of his neck. Again, I figured he slept on it wrong, but when it didn't stop all day, then I knew something was up. Plus, he took a nap both Saturday and Sunday which he never does. That evening we went to the Hillsdale fair. Even though Jake was sick, he still wanted to go. We felt bad because we promised the kids and they were looking forward to it. We wanted to see the combine derby- can you believe there is such a thing? Talk about hillbilly- but we decided just to walk around a bit and come home.

I made a doctor appointment first thing Monday morning. He was sleeping a lot, and still couldn't move his neck. It was swollen now. I figured we would get some antibiotics and be on our merry way. He had a cough for the last 10 days and I figured it was swollen lymph nodes. Dr. Mian took one look at him and told me to get him to the hospital immediately. This is the not what I expected part. I have a hard time understanding Dr. Mian. He is foreign and talks like he arrived in the U.S. yesterday. So, I didn't know exactly what was wrong, I just took Jake to the hospital like I was told. I called David and tried to not be hysterical. I didn't want to scare Jake so I calmly told him to get his a** to the hospital asap! He was of course about an hour and half away.

When they admitted Jake he looked so sick. He was sleepy and you could see it in his eyes. They ran x-rays and couldn't see anything. So then they did an MRI. His IV was the wrong size to inject the dye, so they pushed dye in through a bottle. This made it hard to see exactly what was wrong. I still had Tyler with me, so my brother came and picked him up. At 5:30, when I had to leave to go get Tyler because there was no one else to watch him- we still hadn't seen an actual doctor -he was admitted at 11:00am. At 7:00pm an ear, nose, and throat specialist came in, and told David that Jake had an abscess on the back of his tonsils along with a bad infection. They were going to take him to U of M for surgery to remove the abscess. I was at home getting Tyler ready for bed and David calls to drop this news on me. I have no one to watch Tyler-I called my sister in tears and she drove over from Kalamazoo to spend the night with Ty. Thank goodness for her!!

I had to drive to U of M by myself in the dark and rain, while David and Jake went by ambulance. I was so scared. I keep thinking of my poor friend Sara, who last year took her son to Uof M to be told he had 1 year to live. I had been to Motts before because Jake has yearly appointments for his heart murmur. I hadn't been at night, or in the rain, or when I was was an emotional wreak. I got so freakin' lost. Not only trying to get to the hospital, but in the hospital as well. It is the MOST CONFUSING hospital I have ever been to. By now, it is close to 11:30pm. We are in a room with three other people. There is a small couch for David and I to sleep on. It's too late for a real doctor, so we got a resident. He looked at the MIR from Alliegence, which was poorly done. He said surgery was not needed and Jake just needed to say on IV antibiotics for a few days.

At 3:30 am, David went home. It was to loud and he couldn't sleep on the tiny couch. I was curled up on the end of Jake's bed. The next morning, a real doctor came in, and they scheduled the surgery for later that morning. This was after the resident told me it wasn't needed. Talk about being confused. They did the surgery and took his tonsils out. It went very well. I'm so proud of the way Jake handled everything. There is nothing worse than to see your child suffer to be in pain. I felt so bad for those parents and kids who have to spend weeks and months there. It felt like a prison.

That night, I asked Jake who he wanted to stay with him in the hospital, and he said Daddy. It broke my heart, but at the same time, I'm happy that David and Jake have such a tight bond. I hope it is always that way. He was released the next day, but not until 6:00pm. He wasn't eating or drinking. At that point they realized he hadn't been given any pain medication. They had asked him earlier and he said no, he didn't want any. Hello- why would you ask a five year old if he wanted medicine? What do you think the answer will be? Once he got the medicine we were outta there.

He is doing a lot better now. We are going to half day of school tomorrow and go from there. This whole experience has taught me how fast life can change. We got lucky and and had a problem that doctors were able to fix. I think about the kids who are still there and maybe don't have an easy sickness to fix. My life was turned up side down for three days and now it's back to normal. Some parents will never again have a normal. We are so thankful.