Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Belly of The Beast

I picked him up at Ms. P's at 8 the next morning. It was Monday, November 27th. The day that everything changed forever.

Cameron was very pale and weak, a bit shaky on his feet, and was complaining of the headaches again. We got home and his head was really hurting. I called his doc, who was back in town, and described his symptoms to her. They were able to squeeze us in around 1:30pm that same day. I called school and Ms. P at work (which was usually verboten) to let them know the situation and that I was taking him to the doctor.

All morning long Cameron screamed at his pain. No whining, no crying, just yelling - angry and loud - at his pain to go away. Yelling at the pain as if it were an entity in and of itself. I've never seen anything like it.

I felt so helpless. I gave him a little coffee to help remedy the headache (as if). I laid him on my bed, stroked his hair, and sang softly to my poor sweet baby. He drifted off into a nap, or passed out from the pain, I'm not sure which. I woke him up after a few hours to go to the doctor, but he never came out of his drowsy state. I had to help him walk from the car to the elevator, then into the doctor's office. His words were slurry, and he was really out of it. Like he was drugged.

The doc ran more tests (2 exhausting hours worth), and finally a poke test with the sharp and dull edges of a broken wood tongue depressor. She poked first his right arm, leg and side, then his left. He could feel the difference on his right, but on his left they all felt sharp, or he couldn't feel anything at all.

She looked up at me and said, "I don't know. I suppose it could be psychosomatic." ... After staring at her blankly for a second, I said that something in my gut was nudging me that this might be a neurological issue, because of the numbness and headaches and everything. She muttered something about possibly doing a CAT scan, and I asked if we could please get an MRI, like, immediately. I was probably a little more demanding than that. She set up the appointment immediately, across town. I ushered him back to the car in a wheelchair, drove to the MRI office and tried to prepare him for the idea of lying absolutely still for the 45 minute scan. He could hardly sit up as I undressed him and got him into the hospital robe.

The nurse wheeled him to the scanning room. I held Cameron's hand and then his foot as the conveyor slowly moved my boy into the gigantic donut-shaped MRI machine... into the belly of the beast. Cameron was so out of it, but still managed to reassure me that he wasn't scared. I wish I could have done the same for him.

The clammor of the giant magnets banging around inside the machine during the scan was intense. Try to imagine being a child, strapped to a very uncomfortable platform, a cage around your head, having to lay perfectly still for that amount of time, with a perpetual loud banging going on around your head. Watching this was agonizing for me. I found myself feeling a little grateful that he was so out of it. It was awful, but nothing could have prepared me for what transpired 45 minutes later.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Henry- I feel dread in my stomach as I read this. Your words are very powerful. I feel that this will be one of the last things that I think about before I fall asleep. - Love Chrissi Johnson

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  2. Just found your blog here and have been reading through it and your story about your son. I am truly sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing your story.

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