Breathe out.....

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Friday ended without any nausea or vomiting.  YIPPY Dillon....you made it through Day 3......until......

At dinnertime we noticed Big D was being very quiet and chewing very very carefully (more so than normal).  He also seemed a tiny little bit warm to the touch....hummmmm I think to myself.....is there something going on here or am I just hypersensitive and over-alert.

He woke in the morning shaky.  He proclaimed that it was because he was sooooooo very hungry.  Okay, that seems reasonable.  Except that he was not talking much at all, had on his thick winter PJs (Dillon is a warm-blooded lad who is usually hot even when the rest of us are comfortable), and he was actually physically trembling, not just a little but his entire body.  He tried to eat a bagel/egg sandwich and was having a terrible time chewing it.  I suggested to him that with the sore tongue he might want to eat soft, non-chewing things like yogurt or cream-of-wheat.  He agreed to both.  He ate and ate but was very very quite, would not respond to questions, and was STILL shaking.  The other symptom that was yelling out at my mom's intuition....his cheeks and face were puffy.....I mean really super abnormally swollen...and one side of his face was sorta pinkish and his eye was a little swollen.

He finished his food and went straight back to bed with his thick PJs AND all of his covers on.....RED ALERT, RED ALERT....now this is definitely not the Dillon I know. 

A call to pediatric oncology at UNM.  Get him to the ER ASAP!!!!  NO, not the Albuquerque ER, that was too far and too long...he needs to be seen immediately.  UNM called St. Vincent and when we arrived they were waiting for him with a bed and the appropriate paperwork.  I guess they take kids with cancer pretty seriously.....what a relief because my past experience at the St. Vincent ER has been less than stellar.

Long story short.....5 hours in the ER, blood tests, exams, and no 'real' infection found but obviously something going on inside.  They did discover that his entire mouth and down the back of his throat have lesions on them.  The ones on the sides of is tongue are particularly cavernous, just huge, and terribly inflamed, and red, just really really painful.  Figuring this mass of open wounds in the bacteria laden mouth was probably the source of the bodily symptoms of infection even though the blood work did not show infection, he got IV antibiotics and will go back to the St. Vincent ER to get a second dose tomorrow.

Poor kid came home and slept all afternoon.  Got up to eat some watermelon and beans after he tried pizza and found there was NO WAY he was going to be able to chew that.  Right back to bed even though Sean offered to watch a movie with him on the couch.

My Mommy NON-medical trained brain says that the little bit of immune system he does still have at this point is fighting like crazy to combat this bit of infection that is oozing in his mouth.....and the antibiotics should help kick it in a day or two.

Breathe in......breathe out......that is all I've got right now...just my breath and my boy and we both gotta hang on tight for this roller coaster ride.