Symptoms include: headaches, weakness, nausea, vomiting

Last Tuesday

Sometimes I worry that Nate has a secret bucket list full of manly, dangerous things that hurt but give him good story material for later.  If I’m right, it looks something like this:

  • get stitches in forehead before starting preschool
  • bite completely through lower lip (more stitches)
  • balance on anything that is four inches or higher off the ground
  • get lost at the Monterey Bay Aquarium before starting elementary school and scare the everlivingshit out of mama
  • pierce the webbed skin between the thumb and index finger with a steak knife (more stitches) while slicing a water bottle in two while locked in the bathroom
  • skateboard!
  • paintball!
  • airsoft guns!
  • river rafting!
  • break big toe bone with a skimboard, and then get back in the water to boogie board before going to the hospital
  • break finger bone in a door hinge, badly
  • and, the most recent: get a concussion and CAT scan along with a gnarly sinus infection and bronchitis

Tonight while the girls were at their school with my neighbor for a stargazing party, Nate was watching tv.  I went in to check up on him and he was watching some show that is all about grizzly ways that people die.  To illustrate: the death being explained and recreated for the camera when I walked in was one where a young woman drank absinthe in the back of a limo and then stuck her head out the sunroof to holler, but as she was whooping, a pigeon collided with her open mouth, instantly snapping her neck and making her mouth all bloody and me gag a little, because EWWW PIGEON FEATHERS.  IN HER MOUTH.  I asked him what the hell he was watching, and WHY and he told me not to worry, that it would keep him from doing stupid things.

So, yeah, concussion.  He’s okay and it’s been a week as of tomorrow, but his doctor still wants him home from school one more day, especially since he barfed all over the front lawn today. ** The concussion happened during a wrestling match the Tuesday before
Thanksgiving, just about two or three hours after Scuba went to the
doctor because he’d been feeling sick and feverish for a couple of days and it turned out
he’s got pneumonia.  He’s doing better now, too, but he still rattles and wheezes and naps.  

My poor boys.  They’re falling apart.  We’ve had a lot of soup and rest and movies.  Scuba stayed with us all last week and I hated that he was sick but it was good to have him here.    

Nate got his concussion in a wrestling match.  A wrestling match that he doesn’t remember any of, because he nearly pinned his opponent, but then the kid got up and knocked Nate to the ground from a standing position and Nate landed on his forehead.  I haven’t seen any of his matches this season, and he’s undefeated.  I feel really awful, but I was so sick all those weeks and most of them are during work.  Anyway, that was a terrible call to get; Nate’s number on my caller ID and having it be his coach.  I got him and took him to the emergency room and he was clearly not himself.  But the CT scan looked good, so he’s just got to not bonk his head for a couple of months and he’ll be alright.  

 I keep writing and deleting paragraphs here that are all morose, so I’m just going to wrap it up.  Don’t keep reading.  The rest is super disgusting. 

**That was fun.  We had to stand there and look at it, me wondering how I could clean it up without barfing myself, and him trying to figure out where all the orange color came from.  (orange soda, and maybe some Cajun fries spice from Five Guys)  Thankfully Scuba was here and saved me by suggesting that Nate clean it up, since he was done puking and doing okay and I was not going to be able to get the job done in one piece.  I just spent over four weeks with a stomach ache and nausea and the occasional vomiting.  I really could not deal.  The plan was to hose it down (I’m getting queasy thinking about this too much) and I was skeptical, but trusted that he did a good job until Sophie walked into the kitchen in her rainboots after the stargazing party flipping out because there was barf on her boot.  Looks like I’ll have to figure that out in the morning unless the squirrels bail me out overnight.  This is probably the grossest thing I’ve ever written, unless I wrote about that time in Hawaii when the guy who was snorkeling got seasick and threw up in the water and all the little fish came to clean up.  Okay.  No more.  I’m seriously nauseated now.   

2 thoughts on “Symptoms include: headaches, weakness, nausea, vomiting

  1. Jen

    If it makes you feel any better, I’ve got two boys with similar lists. And, I lost my older son when he was 2 at Disneyland, for almost an hour. By the time I found him, I was hysterically crying, but he was calm and happy and couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about – he was having a perfectly wonderful time. To this day (he’s 13), I still lose him regularly – he’s just one of those kids that gets distracted and wanders off.

    Reply

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