What Now

Middle school

With trepidation Billy started middle school. He started to ride his bike to and from school every day and had daily PE. He LOVED middle school, they didn't give homework in his classes. He did take issue with one thing though "there's no playground" he told me with a look of disbelief. After about four months I could see a change in Billy. I could see his confidence building. We would talk about school and once I asked him if he thought maybe his classes were too easy. Nervously he confided they were, secretly I told him "Good". I told him, how about we ride this year out that after the prior year I think he needed it.

Billy went from being in one classroom with the same 30 kids all day, every day, to being in four different classes with various different kids. So in December when he got sick with a cold I didn't think much of it thinking he just was being exposed to more bugs at the new school.

On December 30th he was complaining about his stomach hurting so much that we went to the local ER. We waited two hours to be seen, I'm kind of a tough it out mom, and come on are we really at the ER with two days left in the year and we will have to pay out a full deductible for the year. After awhile Billy said he didn't think it hurt as much as it was and we could go home. We debated but I figured if it was still bugging him in a couple days we'd go back to the doctors. This cold lingered past two week, and he was missing a week of school, so we went to the doctors for a note. They agreed it was likely just a bug or allergies but ran a few blood tests. Nothing came up and they just told me to keep him home a few more days. At this appointment he weighed 94 pounds. They gave him a shot of antibiotics thinking maybe a low grade infection. Over the course of the next month he seemed ok.

Around February we also started working out as a family, it was fun. Billy got tired fast but we figured it was because he was more active than the rest of us with PE and riding to and from school. So when we went to visit our family's home who kept a measuring stick over break it didn't come as a shock that he had lost a 10 pounds and grown taller. This is what both boys had always done chunk up then stretch out.

In March Billy got sick again, and again more blood was taken this time there was a scare that his sugars were off, they wanted more blood, thinking maybe he had diabetes. So more blood was taken and tested. At this point I'm having to get notes to excuse Billy's absence from school. The test came back fine I'm told. It's just a cold maybe start allergy meds.

We went on scouting hike in early April. The ticks always seem to be drawn to Billy, so when we got home as much as it embarrassed him I had both boys strip down for a tick check. Billy had been bit by a few on the way to and from school. None embedded, no red marks. As an 11 year old boy I no longer bathed him or really ever saw him naked. Billy was VERY private. I gave him that space. As he pulled off his shirt I noticed how angular he had become. No tick bites so I asked him to step on the scale. He was down to 74 pounds. This worried me.

We made an appointment with his doctor, who worked up some blood work and did a chest X-ray. I was waiting and had to hound the doctor to give me a call back, he didn't find it urgent since everything came back clean. Per the doctor "No limes decease, no cancer, we might need to consider if he is anorexic". So we make another appointment for the next week.

We went back a week later and he had lost another five pounds. All during a week when we had been watching what is or isn't being eaten. So more blood work and scans has been ordered. The X-rays and blood-work came back clean. I'm studying what anorexia triggers I should be looking for, but I see nothing. He is doing well in school, he has good friends, Mike and I aren't fighting or talking about divorce. We are buying him whatever he feels like eating, literally walking through the grocery store together.

I call a gastroenterologist that our doctor referred us too but they can't see someone till July. Then told us they don't see kids when I was pleading them to fit him in as he is losing weight so rapidly. I hang up and angrily call our doctor. I'm doing this during work and having to wait hours for a call back.

I work for a husband and wife doing their books for their various businesses. As I get a frustrating call back from the doctors that they will get back to me later with a new referral, I am retelling Jessica, my bosses wife, who is also a Registered Nurse, EVERYTHING about the last few weeks and how I feel like I'm running in circles. Billy is a good sport, but his joints are hurting. He abdomen hurts. He doesn't feel like eating. He's tired but manages to rally to go to school and scouts.

When I'm done Jessica tells me that we are done with our doctor. She said I would be taking Monday off, and I needed to get up and take him to the UCSF Children's Hospital in San Francisco by 6am. That we would be better on a Monday than over the weekend.

That weekend we had a wedding and bridging ceremony in Cubscouts for Shea. Friday we needed to take Billy in for some more labs so he went with Mike and I for a wedding setup. Then Mike took him home while I worked the wedding trying not to be concerned about what those new labs would say.

Our scouting family could tell something wasn't ok. Billy was moving slowly like an old man. When they would ask what was going on I had a note typed up on my phone of exactly we had gone through the last month for them to read. I couldn't contain my worry, I couldn't speak it out lout, but at least it wasn't cancer, but god damn it what was going on?

Sunday night I started to chicken out. I texted Jessica, maybe I shouldn't take him to the ER. Maybe I just needed to make another appointment with a new doctor. This feels urgent but is it really an emergency? Isn't the emergency room for people bleeding out, and broken bones. She texted me back, No Sarah, this IS AN EMERGENCY. So Monday morning Billy and I woke up early and set off to a new hospital not sure what to expect.