My Bubble Boy

Author: thenicknick

It isn’t enough that I live in the bubble, but the boy should be living in a bubble. As I recall, it all began about a year and a half ago. Suddenly, Keenan woke up one morning with one side of his throat protruding grossly. Seriously, it looked like a goiter. Worse, he couldn’t open his mouth from all the pain and pressure. No talking. (Why couldn’t it have been Rachel?) No eating. (It should’ve been me.) No explanation.

Naturally, as with all freak ailments, it happened on a Saturday, which meant the doctor’s office was closed. Even worse was that we had tickets to the Panther game that night. (You have no idea how much I love football. Give it a few months.) And J was going out of his mind at the thought that we might miss the game. After resisting the urge to ring his selfish neck, I did something far more productive and took Keenan to the closest Urgicare. The best explanation they came up with was Lymphitis and a script was written. Within hours he was improving. Within a couple days he was normal. And within six months he had another flare up.

We could never seem to pin the flare ups on anything in particular. I had to pick him up from school one day. He was participating in some science exercise where they were pushing oranges on the floor with their noses, when suddenly *poof* his throat blew up. Hi ho hi ho, it’s off to the doctor we go.

By the time I made that trip to the doctor, they were hating me. Observe:

nurse: Why are you here today?

me: Keenan has lymphitis.

nurse (turning to me with a frustrated look because I’m just another self-diagnosing amateur in her book, and saying with a distinct edge in her voice): What are his symptoms?

me: Swollen lymph node. Same side as always. Can’t speak. Can’t eat. The usual.

nurse: The doctor will see you shortly.

Ahhh. And then the doctor arrives.

Dr: What brings you here today?

me(mind you, at one point we were there practically bi-weekly): Well, the boy has lymphitis again.

Dr(giving me the same disgusted look as the nurse): I’ll be the judge of that.

After a thorough examination, he refused to admit that I was right. As Michael would say, it must have chapped his chicken. It’s not like I was trying to do his job. I still needed him for the script. Right?

We finally had Keenan tested by a specialist, only to discover that he is allergic to EVERYTHING. Everything, you ask? Yes, EVERYTHING. In fact, he’s allergic to air (pollen, dust mites, dust, mold, mildew). The testing grew even more specific, just to be sure that he was, in fact, allergic to every tree. Yup. His arm looked like one of those depression maps, especially near his bicep where I could’ve sworn I saw Italy. Oh, and the pets? He’s allergic to all of them, especially cats. Good thing we have two of those.

The specialist had a talk with us about what to do to help him prevent these reactions. The moment he mentioned the pets, Keenan’s eyes overflowed. (And since he has such enormous brown eyes rimmed with long black eyelashes, it was quite the spectacle.)

Keenan: Mom, are we going to have to get rid of the animals? *sniffle*

me: No, baby. We’ll get rid of you first. They’re lower maintenance.

Knowing me as well as he does, that sparked a laugh and a smile. Success!

Which brings me to today. This morning, as I’m getting ready for work, I received two text messages from the boy, sent from his bedroom across the hall.

Keenan: Help! I’m having an allergic reaction and I can’t speak.

After I recovered from the initial panic, I mused that he could’ve come and knocked on the door since it didn’t affect his legs at all. So, I’ve put in a call to the doctor. I know they can’t wait to see us again. And this time, I’ll behave. As best I can. For those that know me…not very reassuring, huh?

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Tags: child rearing, illness, Parenting

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.