Boo-Boo's and Ice Cream - an update on Landon

In this post a few weeks ago I talked a little bit about trying to find out what is the matter with this sweet boy.

Well, Landon got sick on Wednesday afternoon with a fever at school. I immediately took him to the doctor. This was not a good experience for us at all. First, let me state that we LOVE Landon's doctor. He is just the right amount of understanding, explaining, and not to "over the top" on tests and the often time very unnecessary things. He's honest with us, and is always telling stories of his kids and what they did at "that age." All that to say, that I wasn't too impressed with our visit on Wednesday. Wednesday is Dr. N's "day off". He is usually in the office that day, working on charts and doing paperwork and the such. Fine, I totally understand. But when the Dr. is out they sent us to see the Registered Nurse Practitioner. I don't really care for her too much. She's not bad, just not the doctor we know. Over the past few months we've really gotten to know the Dr.!!!

This requires a little bit of history.

Five weeks ago when Landon was sick we finally started really taking some action with these fevers. For the past several months we've been questioning what was causing these. In June (while I was gone at the Structure House) the doctor said he was getting a little bit concerned with the routine and the lack of other symptoms. We started keeping records and notes about all kinds of stuff around here to see if there was a pattern with anything we were eating, doing, you name it. So when Landon got sick in July we let him know, but didn't bring him in. At the beginning of August when he got sick again, on a Friday night, we brought him to the doctor on Monday just to have him looked at even though his fever had gone down. At that time they took an initial white blood count (see previous post for that story). So we honestly expected Landon to get sick at the end of August or beginning of September. Our 3-4 week window passed with no fever. During that time Landon did have a really bad reaction to some bug bites one day, so I used that as an excuse to get him to the doctor again. I wanted to talk to the doctor about a new "phenomena" that had been taking place. Landon had begun to occasionally (three times that we know of) black out. Not pass out, but black out. He says he can't see. He'll stop what he's doing and say he "can't see in the dark" when it's totally light!! Since we are documenting anything and everything, I knew this was something the doctor should know about. Well, when we called to make the appointment, just 25 days after the previous fever spell, the doctor told us, that if he had been running a fever he was going to order some labs and have a blood smear. But since he wasn't "sick" then we would wait for the next spell. Ok, all that to say, when I called the doctor's office on Wednesday, and they wanted us to see the RNP, I asked if we could skip it and go straight to the lab. They said I had to come in. Fine, I get it. But when I got there, I felt like everyone thought I was crazy for bringing my son in with "only a fever, and no other symptoms". I had the nurse and the RNP both make this statement like, "really, only a fever?" I had to go through the "story" about 5 times. I have to admit that I was a bit on guard. My mommy guns were loaded!! I was calm and reasonable, but I did stand my ground. The RNP didn't think we needed to run blood work for a fever. I tried to explain to her that it was necessary, and the only reason we were here was because the doctor had told us 5 weeks ago that he wanted a blood smear AS SOON AS POSSIBLE when we found out Landon was running a fever. She wanted to run a strep test because his throat was a little bit red.

Yes, it is, it always is.

I let her.

Well, she ran her strep test and left the room. Usually a strep test takes about 2 minutes - I know we've had several of them! Landon HATES the "swabs" as he calls them. He threw up once when he had a strep test and now he's always scared he's going to throw up again. He doesn't forget easily! Landon and I waited, and waited, and waited for the test results, for about 15 minutes. Finally another nurse came back in and had orders for blood work. Never hearing back about the strep test, I assume it was negative. We never saw the RNP again. Fine by me! (side note: I learned the Dr. N wasn't there that day doing charts, he was actually gone. I wonder if the RNP called him and he told her to order the test?)

We took the orders and left the doctor's office. We grabbed Landon a sticker for letting the RNP do the strep test, and headed to the lab. Thank GOD Shannon was in town, because I knew I was going to need help; he met us at the lab. There was no way I could do this by myself, physically or emotionally. We went to the lab, where the guy that checked us in and did the lab work was really great with Landon. Unfortunately, Shannon and I couldn't hold Landon still enough for the draw and the needle slipped after only half of the first tube. He was going to have to do it again in the other arm. Much harder the second time because now Landon knows what to expect. I had to hold onto his arm so tight I thought I was going to snap it in two (I didn't!). After three test tubes full of blood, we were done. The lab tech let Landon pick out another sticker for being such a good sport (even though he really wasn't). After the blood draw we took a VERY upset Landon home. When I put Landon in the car after the ordeal he was still sobbing a little bit when he told me, "Mom, I don't want anymore stickers today, ok?"

Broke my heart.

Poor kid.

We decided that Chocolate Ice Cream with M&Ms and Oreos would help his boo-boos feel better.

Now the waiting.....

On Friday, after lunch, I called the doctor's office to see if they had his test results back yet. They didn't at the time, but they would call and check to see if they were done and could send over the results so we didn't have to wait through the weekend. (See, usually the doctor's office is very helpful!) The nurse called the lab and did get them to send over the results. She called me a few times during the afternoon to get some more information and ask a few more questions (information and questions I knew Dr. N already had the answers to, but I answered them anyways). She did go ahead and tell me that his white count was normal. (This ruled out some of the things we thought it could be.) That was all she could tell me. I was going to have to wait to speak with Dr. N about the other results. I went back into my meeting and waitied....waited...waited....I never got a call.

My meeting was over and I was heading home via the grocery store because we were having company for dinner. We were enjoying dinner when an unknown number came across my cell phone. Yes, it was the doctor, calling from his cell phone, in the car. He had an event he had to get to that evening, but didn't want me to have to wait until Monday to talk to him.

See, we like this guy!

He gave me the run down of Landon's tests and what he was thinking and what our next move should be.

Landon's CBC showed that everything looked normal. His Sed Rate, was normal, but his CRP was high. The CRP is a test to measure the C-Reactive Protein in blood. This protein is usually not present in blood, but appears when the body is fighting an infection. It doesn't give any specific details, just lets you know there is a problem. Now, we just have to try and find out what the problem is. We are checking back in with the doctor on Monday and then we are going to get a referral to a Infectious Disease doctor. We will see, and we will keep you posted.