Illnesses

Everyone has something lately, and our house is filled with it.

Brooke has been hoarse and coughing since about Sunday, I'm still "recovering" from when I had the craptacular coughing like, at Thanksgiving, (I'm still coughing but not nearly like before), and Corbin came home from school with a fever and chills yesterday.

I'm trying to stay level headed. Brooke had a low grade fever a few days ago, and I did end up taking her to the doctor yesterday at Tim's insistence. She just has a cold, which I knew. But it's good to know.

Corbin went to the nurse two times yesterday. The first time he was complaining that his stomach hurt. The second time was the chills.

He really hates missing school. He came home and went into his bed (on his own) and slept. No TV.

He didn't eat lunch yesterday and barely at any dinner last night. He did eat some breakfast today, although I don't know how much since he dumped it before I got a chance to see.

Last night he vomitted. He said this morning that it was from coughing, although he hasn't really been coughing.

This morning he said he felt fine, but about five times or so he told me that his stomach hurt, and then that it went away. I asked him to touch the spot where it was hurting, and it was inconsistent. (once it was on his left side, then it was on his right side, another time it was under his bellybutton.) To me, this sounds like gas or stool moving through. I told him it's probably gas or poop. At one point, just before he got dressed, he was laying on his bed, and he told me that he had to lay and make his belly feel better. He showed me where it hurt. It was a different spot than previously. Then he sat up, and I said, "I think it's really gas, because your intestines are right there, and they curl around in your belly like this." and I traced on his stomach. Then he said, "Wait... I think I feel a toot coming". And he did. And then he said he felt much better.

This is just more confirmation to me that it's gas.

He wasn't warm, but I did give him Tylenol just to be safe, and got him ready for school. I told him that if his belly hurt at school today, just to sit for a minute and let it pass, because every time that it hurt this morning, the feeling did go away after a few minutes. "Right?"

He said, "Right."

I said, "Unless it hurts so bad that you want to cry, then go to the nurse, or if it just keeps hurting for a really long time."

I got his coat all done up, and he was standing there with a look on his face. I said, "What's wrong?"

He said, "I'm not staying home from school today!"

I said, "Does your belly hurt again?"

He started crying.

I undid his coat and asked him where. He pointed about where his bladder is, and I asked him if he had to poop. He said he had to pee and ran in to the bathroom. He said he felt better and ran outside where the bus was waiting.

Oh at one point I did give him a Tums, and then a few minutes later he cried that it wasn't working, and it still hurt.

I'm trying to stay rational about it, but, being the person that I am, I freak out in my head. I made sure to ask him if he's holding in gas or poop, and he says he doesn't. As a teenager and into my twenties I had abdominaln pain issues that I was sure was just gas, but I also figured it was from holding it in so much.

So I'm trying to think of all of the things it "could" be that don't have to include "the worst" thing, because this isn't the first time that he's complained of stomach pain, it's just the most that he has.

It could be just gas.

It could be that he's lactose intolerant, and he LOVES cheese, but I'm not sure how that manifests; if it's diarrheal or constipation.

It could be a food allergy.

The fact that it's moving around is comforting to me, because it just seems like it wouldn't "move" if it were anything serious. The fact that it bothers him so much, though, bothers me.