Today we hit a milestone of sorts. Max woke up this morning complaining of an upset stomach, sore throat, and headache. My wife said that he felt very hot when he got out of bed. However, he did get up, get dressed, and complete his homework; but he’s just not feeling well so today he is getting his first sick day home from school ever.
This is not the first day he has ever been out of school; he has spent time in the hospital for his bipolar disorder. But at 8 years old he has never felt so sick physically to want to stay home. He loves school so he must really feel bad; even when he is a little sick he insists on going. Though it will disrupt home life today it almost feels good that he is having a “normal” child illness. After his homework this morning he curled up on the couch and watched the Olympic bobsledding recorded last night.
We don’t know how he got sick yet. We’ve come up with several thoughts:
1. Max and I spent Saturday night at the Boston Museum of Science on a Cub Scout sleepover. It turns out that several of the kids there had just gotten over illnesses the week before.
2. Just being at the museum and touching all of the things that other people have been touching could have caused this. No telling how many people there were sick.
3. He woke up Sunday morning with a headache. We just figured he hadn’t slept very well on the museum floor.
4. As part of the overnight, on Sunday morning we got to see a movie at their Omni theater. The screen is built like a globe cut in half. It is set up with stadium seating and it felt like we were only inches from the screen. Not only that, the movie was very bright. As a result on top of the headache he got an upset stomach. After the movie he spent 20 minutes just lying down on a bench before asking to go home.
5. Last night Max and I went swimming at the YMCA. He ended up swallowing a lot of chlorinated water.
These are just possibilities. It could be any or all of them that have caused the problem. Or even something else. I was reading a Raising Bipolar post today about how some medications can cause stomachaches (among other things).
My wife and I will have to keep watching to see what happens. For now Max is quiet. He’s not running around getting into things. He is not yelling or insisting on doing one (or more) projects.
This may not last very long. Max does get sick but he gets over things quickly. A 24 hour bug never lasts more than 12 hours. Last fall he came home from school with all of the symptoms of H1N1; he got over it in a day. We believe this was what he had because at the time several kids in his class and on his bus had it. 3 or 4 days later I got it and was down for 2 weeks. This all happened before the flu shots became available.
So only time will tell on how long this lasts.
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