There’s been some drama in the Virushead household.

Part I: The Hubby: Last Friday, J went unconscious twice in the middle of the night (so that’s technically Saturday). The first time, he went down with a crash that woke me up. The second time was while I was trying to help him to get back into bed – and we both hit the floor on that one. Not a thing I could do, and we both sustained some minor injuries. I’m not as strong as I thought.
We’ve been told that this was likely a passing episode of vasovagal syncope. From my perspective, it was pure terror. For a couple of (my) heartbeats, I thought I’d lost him. After I screamed in his face for a little bit, he came around to consciousness again. His vitals were steady, his pupils were equal, but he said, “there’s something wrong with my symmetry.” I ruled out stroke and heart attack, and he seemed to recover well enough. If it ever happens again, I’m calling 911. At the time, it seemed like it would have been an over-reaction, but in retrospect I think I made a mistake by not calling.
Of course, there’s no-one else to call on a Friday night. There should be something that covers the gap between doctor’s hours and a call for an ambulance. By the time he was able to see his doctor, there wasn’t really much evidence for anything else that might have happened.
During the week, he started to have early-morning vertigo. By Thursday, it had become enough of a problem that he was instructed to go to the emergency room.

Part II: The Son: On Wednesday, J took B (the son) to the doctor for his checkup. We had discussed (in some detail, and on several occasions) my gut aversion to more than one vaccine being given at a time. It’s anecdotal and frankly just intuitive, but I’ve done a lot of thinking about the immune system. In addition, I remember Ben being traumatised to some extent when they gave him three shots in one visit. Psychologically, I think two is the limit. I also can’t help but wonder about the synergistic effect of several vaccines at once, especially when they involve viruses. Anyway, B needed a chicken pox vaccine (which I’m already a little skeptical about since chicken pox helps to provide immunity against smallpox) and the doctor wanted to give him a flu shot as well. John expressed our concerns, and evidently the doctor thought it was “just silly” – and gave me a call at work.
After some discussion, I started to feel like perhaps I was just being overly-cautious. Since I started working full-time, that also meant that J was the one to have to take him to the doctor. He wasn’t feeling well himself. Between the doctor’s argument and J’s condition, I relented – just for this one time.
So of course B had a reaction. All Wednesday night he was curled up against me – shivering, listless, unhappy, feverish, waking up all through the night.

Part III: Thursday: After being up most of the night, I was in rough shape. Ben was home, still feeling terrible, and we needed to talk to his doctor. J was feeling worse, too. Within a half-hour I talked to Ben’s pediatrician and we got instructions from J’s doctor to go to the emergency room for a CT scan and some other testing. I sent a message to my team at work, and resigned myself to one of those days. I bundled B up in the back of the car, and we drove off to the hospital where J was expected.
Evidently certain procedures are just dumped on ERs now – I think that’s unethical, but I don’t make the decisions. The emergency room shouldn’t have to deal with things like that. Just schedule a CT scan! What’s the problem?

Part IV: Conclusion: Thankfully, J did not have a brain tumor or anything else I had imagined, although it took almost all day to find that out.
He had just knocked his rocks loose. Hee-hee. Seriously, that’s what they said. The diagnosis is Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo: “The ear contains tiny sand grains of Calcium Carbonate call otoliths which literally means ear rocks. These fellows are meant to be heavy and like to fall on receptors in the ear called hair cells when you tilt your head. In this way your inner ear relays information to your brain about the position of your head. Lots of times these little rocks come off of their membrane and break free going from a part of the inner ear called the utricle falling into one of the semicircular canals, most commonly the posterior canal.” Fun, huh? There is some sort of “Dizziness Clinic” where he can’t get an appointment until mid-month. I hope he’s careful in the parking lot. Evidently there are a lot of dizzy individuals in the university community (don’t say it, don’t say it).

The son was still in pretty bad shape this morning, and after some discussion, I encouraged him to get into bed to see if he could sleep a little more. The idea was that he would go to school, but a little later than usual. He slept until 1:30, and I don’t know a better validation for his staying home than that. He’s starting to feel a little better tonight, and ibuprofen has helped a lot so I think he’ll be almost back to his regular self tomorrow.

I worried all day, but J and B managed by themselves. Good job!

I got home, threw the hambone in for some weekend pea soup, and cracked a beer. Man, it’s been a long week. I’m glad it’s over.

Despite everything, I’m strangely contented. Have a good weekend, everyone!