Bad Head Day

I have been tracking Tad’s migraines for a couple of years now, and haven’t really been able to figure out a pattern.  His last one was last July.  Before then, it used to be every three months.  And now, it’s been over seven months.  So, I really have no idea and can’t predict when they are going to show up.

Yesterday morning, the first thing he said to me when I woke him up was “my brain hurts,”  which is his red-flag phrase.  Lately, it’s been more of a “I’m light-headed and hungry” flag, so my first question was “Are you hungry?”

“No.”

Uh-oh.

I got him dressed and tried to get him to eat breakfast (while I also gave him a dose of ibuprofen), but he was just miserable.  So I put him to bed, talked to his bus driver when she came, called his teacher, and called the school to tell them he wasn’t coming.  I knew that if I could just get him to nap, then he had a good chance of making it to his regular speech therapy session in the afternoon.

Of course, it had to be the day that I had an assessment scheduled for Thumper, and people coming over to the house in the morning.  So I tucked Tad into bed (and then he asked for the iPad, and I said NO, YOU NEED TO REST), and finally dragged Rerun (who has no school on Wednesdays) to my room to watch TV while I had my meeting and Thumper played with the guests.  More on that later.

About halfway through the visit, I heard Tad yell, “Mom, I’m feeling better, can I come out now?”

“NO.”  I was miffed.  The meds had kicked in, and now I was sorry I hadn’t sent him to school.

When our guests left, Rerun and Tad came out of their rooms and immediately started acting normally – i.e. picking fights with each other.  I was inwardly rejoicing that we had speech to go to today while I was making lunch.

But as lunch was served… I really don’t have any other way to put it, but Tad was like a balloon that was slowly being deflated.  I could almost visibly see the energy leaving his body.  He only ate half his peanut butter and jelly sandwich (another red flag) and crawled back to the couch.  I gave him Tylenol because I could tell the meds were wearing off, and let him watch one of his favorite shark documentaries.

By the time Ane got home, it was time to pack up for speech.  His speech therapist said he did very well, but you could tell that he wasn’t quite himself.

We came back home and he promptly curled back up on the couch and fell asleep.  I woke him up for dinner – which he ate, and then headed back to the couch.

I had an errand to run after the Webmaster got home, and when I returned, Tad was in the bathtub.  He’d asked for a bath – maybe he needed a little sensory therapy from the water.  We put a pretty deflated kid to bed.  He really didn’t have any of his normal spirit at all.

Here’s hoping today will be better, and that these migraines don’t start coming up as a frequent occurrence.  I like my boy with a little more pep.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2015 at 12:37 am and is filed under Children, Sick Days.
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