Friday, December 2, 2011

I hate that it seems the only time I have been posting is to describe some calamity in the Riggs' household, but here I am again. The whole week of Thanksgiving Sam was not feeling great. He complained of a sore throat and was stuffy. He never ran a fever and he seemed to get better. This whole week I could tell in his eyes that he was still not feeling the best. Yesterday morning when I went in to wake him up he was burning up. His fever was 102. Jeremy stayed in with him yesterday. No new symptoms, just the fever on and off and he took a 4 hour nap. When I got in from class last night he was in bed but he was awake and he seemed to be feeling better. I had already called in because he still had the fever, so I slept with him. Jeremy came in around 5:30 this morning to give him another dose of Advil. Around 6:00 Sam shot out of bed and said his nose was about to bleed. Bleed it did. I have never seen so much blood come out of somebody's nose. It was shooting out. Our bathroom looked like a crime scene. The blood was flowing into his throat so he began to spit out blood. We could not get it to stop bleeding. I have to admit, I do not handle it very well when my children are bleeding and this was bad. We looked on-line to see how to stop a nose bleed. It said it should stop within 20 minutes, if not take to ER. It continued to bleed but did let up some. I called our doctor's office on call line and left a message for someone to call me. Well, in about 15 minutes our doctor, yes the actual doctor, called. He did not seem overly concerned but told me to bring him in at 8:30 because that is when he would be there. A few minutes after our conversation he called me back and told me to go ahead and bring him in, he was heading to the office. Sam's nose continued to bleed. We got to the doctoe's around 8:00 and it was still bleeding a little. The doctor came in and looked at every thing and then a weird look came over his face. He left the room with no indication of what it might be. A few minutes later a nurse came in with a little packet and I knew what they were doing, taking his blood. I already knew in my heart what they were checking for, but I held it together and asked what they were checking for. The nurse looked up at me and I could tell she did not want to tell me. With hesitation she said they were checking for an infection, cheking his white blood cells, and his platelets. That is when the room started to swirl around me. I started to think about the past few months where I have noticed some things that were not quite right. I remembered Papa saying that he was "lethargic" and was thinking of the weird, but minor nose bleeds Sam had been having. I was scared and I also remembering making the statement to someone about Chloe's miraculous circumstances in which she was placed in our family and I thought about the possibility of Sam ever got sick and needed something from a family member. Today as  I waited for the results I was afraid that today was the day those words would come back to haunt me. I know some may read this and think I totally over reacted, but I felt like I was reliving my own experience. I recognized the look of worry on the doctor's face. I knew all the things they were saying was a nice way of saying, " We are making sure he does not have cancer." I know the reality of  a routine medical appointment shaking up your world. It is unbelievable how many thoughts and memories can rush through your mind in a short amount of time. I help it together and we waited. It is amazing that the things you thought mattered kinda go out the window when the things most important are hurting. After what seemed to be forever, the doctor came back in and said that his white blood cells and platelets were fine and I could finally exhale. He has an infection and a ulcer in his nose that caused the severe nose bleed. We left the office and the tears flowed from my eyes. Sam was a little worried about me I think:) I told him I was crying because I was happy that he would be okay.

We got home and we both took a nap. He woke up at 2:00 and his fever spiked to 104. I gave him more medicine and then I think his fever broke. He was sweating and he seemed to start to perk up. A few months ago he was asked to be the escort at Homecoming for one of our dear teenagers. She is a senior and he escorted her a few years ago. We had already rented the tux and I know she really wanted him to be there. So, since his fever seemed to be down I took him. He was so handsome! He seems to be better but I will be keeping an eye on him through the night.

I could not get the pictures to post tonight, so I will try tomorrow.