How long and how short a year can be
It has been a whole year since Christopher's last episode of meningitis, and we were all beginning to believe it was over. Tonight it doesn't look that way.
Yesterday afternoon he was tired, but since he didn't get a lot of sleep during the semester break, we figured that starting back to school again wouldn't be too easy for him. When he complained about not feeling well, I thought it was probably another case of "allergic to schoolwork", but in the evening he had a slight temperature, so he didn't go with us to the Bobby McFerrin concert that a kind friend had helped us get tickets for. When I turned on my phone in the break and found a message that he was going to bed and I shouldn't wake him in the morning, I started getting worried. Peter and I listed all the people we know who are or have been sick lately – as is common in an unusually mild winter – and tried to reassure ourselves that it is probably just an ordinary flu like everyone else has.
Christopher slept straight through very deeply for fourteen hours, barely even stirring when I kept going in to put my hand on his head. When he finally woke up, he was weak and complained that his head felt heavy, but he was also impatient and irritated with me for making such a fuss and vehemently rejected the idea of asking our family doctor to come by. His temperature didn't go up much during the day, and he just laid on the couch watching films, occasionally complaining about me hovering over him, insisting that the headache wasn't a meningitis headache and that he would be fine to go to school tomorrow.
Then his temperature started rising in the evening and he was visibly getting worse. At one point he complained that it felt as though his eyes were being pushed out of his head, but when I was alarmed and said that was how he has described meningitis headaches before, he denied it. It's not meningitis, it's not meningitis, it's not meningitis, it's not ...
About half an hour after we took his temperature and it had gone up again, he suddenly said he was scared. Then I felt guilty, thinking I had finally managed to talk him into thinking it might be meningitis again after all. He said I hadn't talked him into it, so I asked if he had been lying to me all day about it being different. He said he hadn't been lying to me, he had been lying to himself. Which one of us should either of us believe now?
Temperature rising, intermittent moaning, groggy ... But he still didn't want to take any pain pills before he climbed back into bed. It may still be the case that one or both of us is being overly dramatic here. Maybe. Or it may be a long night.
After all, it has been a whole year ...
Yesterday afternoon he was tired, but since he didn't get a lot of sleep during the semester break, we figured that starting back to school again wouldn't be too easy for him. When he complained about not feeling well, I thought it was probably another case of "allergic to schoolwork", but in the evening he had a slight temperature, so he didn't go with us to the Bobby McFerrin concert that a kind friend had helped us get tickets for. When I turned on my phone in the break and found a message that he was going to bed and I shouldn't wake him in the morning, I started getting worried. Peter and I listed all the people we know who are or have been sick lately – as is common in an unusually mild winter – and tried to reassure ourselves that it is probably just an ordinary flu like everyone else has.
Christopher slept straight through very deeply for fourteen hours, barely even stirring when I kept going in to put my hand on his head. When he finally woke up, he was weak and complained that his head felt heavy, but he was also impatient and irritated with me for making such a fuss and vehemently rejected the idea of asking our family doctor to come by. His temperature didn't go up much during the day, and he just laid on the couch watching films, occasionally complaining about me hovering over him, insisting that the headache wasn't a meningitis headache and that he would be fine to go to school tomorrow.
Then his temperature started rising in the evening and he was visibly getting worse. At one point he complained that it felt as though his eyes were being pushed out of his head, but when I was alarmed and said that was how he has described meningitis headaches before, he denied it. It's not meningitis, it's not meningitis, it's not meningitis, it's not ...
About half an hour after we took his temperature and it had gone up again, he suddenly said he was scared. Then I felt guilty, thinking I had finally managed to talk him into thinking it might be meningitis again after all. He said I hadn't talked him into it, so I asked if he had been lying to me all day about it being different. He said he hadn't been lying to me, he had been lying to himself. Which one of us should either of us believe now?
Temperature rising, intermittent moaning, groggy ... But he still didn't want to take any pain pills before he climbed back into bed. It may still be the case that one or both of us is being overly dramatic here. Maybe. Or it may be a long night.
After all, it has been a whole year ...
Labels: Christopher, meningitis
posted by Aileen at Wednesday, February 28, 2007
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