When my son was 2 1/2 years old, he was very active and a good walker. One day, he suddenly started walking like he was drunk, and he kept missing furniture when trying to climb on it. I took him to the doctor, and they took a blood sample and sent us home. The next day, I called the doctor’s office, and they said the doctor was out, but they’d check the lab results and get back to me. Meanwhile, my son was getting worse. While giving him a bath, he suddenly fell backward, which was really scary. I called again, and the nurse said his blood work was normal, but I didn’t believe it. Fortunately, they had a doctor on call from our city’s Children’s Hospital, who asked all the usual questions, like if he had gotten into something poisonous. When I said no and explained the new symptoms, he told us to go straight to the ER. They did more tests but couldn’t find anything until they tested his spinal fluid. That’s when they found meningitis. He was admitted to the hospital for 3 days, given serious medication, and we waited to see if it was viral or bacterial. Thankfully, it was viral, and my son had no lasting effects. It was a tough week, especially since I was 7 months pregnant with our second child, but I’m so grateful I pushed to get answers.
Fast forward to when he was 16. It was a Friday night football game, and he was marching in the band, playing his trumpet. He felt a little woozy but thought he was fine. That night, he passed out at a friend’s house. The next few days, he just laid around, saying it felt like something was “sloshing” in his chest. I thought it might be pneumonia, so I took him to the doctor. The doctor thought it was just a pulled muscle, but I insisted on getting an x-ray. Thank goodness I did. The x-ray showed that he had a collapsed lung and was building up fluid (blood) in his chest. This was the first of 10 spontaneous lung collapses over the years. His last one happened two years ago, and the doctors say he’ll likely outgrow them by the time he’s about 40.
This boy has definitely given me a lot of grey hairs over the years!
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