What's WRONG With That Boy?

Okay. Here's the scoop. Though it's not straight from The Pony's mouth. He has little interest in helping people, you know, so he's not going to share the story with you. That falls to Val, the authority on everything.

Genius arrived home from college on Saturday. On Sunday morning, he woke up with a bad headache. His neck was sore. He figured it would go away. Maybe he slept on it wrong. Different pillow. Each day he had the headache. It hurt to turn his neck. At my sister the ex-mayor's wife's Christmas Eve party, my mom said, "Genius is not feeling well, is he?" No. He still had that headache. His neck still hurt. Same on Christmas Day. I told him that we should get him in to see the doctor on Friday. Au contraire. Friday morning, Hick spirited Genius away on a Goodwilling trip spanning more than several counties. I found out later that they were also car-shopping. That's another story.

Remember that I fell ill Christmas Eve, and was on death's door Friday, with a fever of 101.2. I knew that Genius should go to the doctor, but he said he was actually feeling a bit better on Friday. Saturday morning, when I thought we might work him in at Urgent Care, he took off with Hick to buy a car. I dragged myself to Save A Lot and my mom's driveway, finding out how weak I really was, not yet healed from my fevered illness. Hick went into his usual histrionics of some imagined slight (I know, that man is SO unreasonable) and took off around 3:00. I had no idea where he went. I was too weak to care much. I figured he would end up at his auction at 6:00 as usual, so I was off the hook for his supper.

Around 5:00, Genius flopped onto the long couch gingerly, declaring that he felt really, really bad. Which is how it goes, right? They're sickest on the holiday or weekend or whenever no Urgent Care is open. So I asked him if he thought he was sick enough that we needed to go to the ER. He said he thought so.

I was kind of worried at his symptoms. Stiff neck and headache make me think of meningitis. I know he had the meningitis shot (twice, due to our faulty record-keeping) before going away to college. But there is also viral meningitis, though no treatment for it. And Genius had casually mentioned that he and his RA cronies had a little wrestling match/couch cushion royale on Thursday before he came home. This had come up during the week, when he said his knee hurt from wrestling around. He elaborated that he got whacked in the head with a couch cushion as well. I didn't want him to have a skull fracture or leaking spinal fluid. So, even though I was now only on death's front sidewalk, I planned to put on real clothes and haul him to the ER. I called Hick to inform him.

Hick had been hiding out in his creekside cabin. He came back to the house and said he would take Genius to the ER. Which meant he would miss his auction, but that's life when you have a kid who catches couch cushions with his skull. Off they went, only to return after 9:00, not quite satisfied, but optimistic. They had waited quite a while, and been seen by a Physician's Assistant. You'd think at the prices they charge for emergency medicine, you could at least get a real doctor. Or a medical test. But after paying the $200 copay, Genius was looked at for five minutes, declared to have a cervical strain, and given prescriptions for Flexeril and Tramadol. He took them Saturday night, and again Sunday morning.

Sunday afternoon, around 1:30, Genius said his head hurt ten times worse than yesterday. His discharge papers said to come back if his symptoms worsened. So I gave in and took him back to the ER, because he was adamant that Hick not be the one to take him this time, and that he had wanted me to take him Saturday, too, because I would not have let him leave after five minutes and no medical tests.

Genius was actually weeping with pain. When he stood up to walk, he walked sideways. He doesn't think so. He said his head hurt so bad that he was making sure to put each foot down as easily as he could. But he WAS leaning sideways when he walked. He kept blowing his nose on the way there, using my precious stash of Puffls With Lotion. I thought maybe he was coming down with what I had, but he said not at all. It was from the tears. I told him to cry in the ER, maybe they would believe how much it hurt. And he said he was no punk-a$$ b*tch. I swear. The language those young 'uns pick up at college!

We had several adventures at the ER, which I will reveal in coming days, so Joe H. maybe should find some uplifting blogs to read until my continuing series on hospitals is complete. But the short version to complete this informational post is that Genius DID see a real doctor, a really GOOD doctor, who performed blood tests, and subsequently a CAT scan, a lumbar puncture, and an MRI with contrast, due to the elevated results in one of the blood tests. He and the lady doctor who came on duty at shift change were able to rule out meningitis, blood clots in the brain, a slowly leaking aneurism, and infection in the spinal fluid.

They concluded that it is probably viral in nature, and might take a while to get over, and will treat his symptoms with a Percocet and a different muscle relaxer, since Genius said the other drugs were not working for him. His official diagnosis was "viral syndrome." We are to get him a follow-up appointment with his regular doctor this week.

Oh, and he had four shots of morphine while he was there, to finally take away his pain. I felt really, really bad for my Genius. He's my shining star. I hate to see him in pain. Though I will venture that most people on morphine are generally more cheerful than that boy.

Not an experience I would like to repeat. Unless I get some morphine, too.