It's all in your head...

We've had a rough day. It started out with throwing up. Never a good way to start your day. Mario had taken the day to help and arrived shortly AV (after vomiting). 

All morning Ollie was restless and unhappy. Partly because he didn't get to go home again today and partly just because he felt rotten and is tired of feeling that way. He has been having intense pain in his head and that worried us and the doctors. We've been doing a lot of head rubbing and for massaging to try to help him.

Ollie endured a neurological test this morning (protesting loudly that it was stupid and these weren't even real medical tests!). Everything apparently seemed okay.

I met with Social Work this morning for my own peace of mind and later we all met with a psychology resident to talk about Ollie's anxiety. He has always been a sensitive and sometimes anxious kid, but lately it's really tough and understandably so. The really good and surprising news is that we are apparently killing this parent coaching/managing anxiety thing despite often feeling we aren't. The psychologist told us every strategy we are already using to calm him (gentle touch, one voice, white noise, telling him how powerful his brain and positive thinking are, etc.) are things they have to teach most parents to do when they start working with psychology. 

So I guess we are ahead of the game. I just wish it was a game we knew all of the rules to. Most of it is stuff that worked when they were babies and we didn't know what else to do. They are going to help us to teach Ollie to show us when he is feeling anxious before it escalates and help us to apply strategies to avoid the escalation versus the ones we are currently using simply to help him recover after he has already escalated. I did feel good after meeting with our mental health team. It can be scary to put everything out there about your parenting and have it judged.

At one point this afternoon the doctors told us they wanted a CT of his head to rule out a blood clot that can sometimes occur in chemotherapy patients. Ollie started getting worked up about this as it required another IV insertion (third this week) so that they could inject contrast into him. In order to calm him we had to give him Atavan (a sedative) and rock him while rubbing his head.

At this point he started mumbling his words like he couldn't form them and then couldn't suck water into a straw. We were very stressed. At this point the doctors wanted an immediate CT.

We got him calmed and onto a gurney where he promptly threw up all over himself. Changed him, bedding and gurney and we were on our way. Ladies in CT were incredible (as always) despite being short-staffed (Mario and I helped to move him from gurney to backboard). Then we lead aproned up and stayed with him.

A bit later after we were back in his room and settled, the doc confirmed that CT was clear, but said if fever is not gone tomorrow they'll call in infectious diseases to be sure they didn't miss anything. Worst case scenario Thursday he'll go for anorher lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis, but we hope he won't need it.

Tonight after much drama they managed to get a stool sample and will test that, too, so I am hopeful we'll finally get to the bottom of this. We hope to be home for at least a few days before starting round 3 of chemo next Tuesday.

The day wasn't all bad...we did get some news on last week's scans to check on the progress for his lymphoma, but I'll write that shortly in a separate post.

So I am just rubbing his head and trying to get him through this however we can for now.

Please keep praying that this illness passes for him quickly so he can stop being in pain and we can get home.