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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Ups and Downs of Life as a 10-Year Old Boy

Pardon the lack of updates this week (I should probably say that every week). I've had a little friend home with me every day this week so far, with little end in sight.

As an aside, I had someone home with me for two days last week, as well. Actually, Eamonn was home with a sick kid one of those days while I went to work at the ski school.

Anyway, last week it was Finn; this week it's Declan.

A few weeks ago, the world was Declan's oyster. He had just turned 10 (OK, he was sick on his birthday, but he did finally have his party). He received a much longed for Nintendo DSi for his birthday (I'm totally addicted to doing sudoku on it--in fact, I'm taking a short break from writing this RIGHT NOW to play a game. Back in a sec.)

OK, I'm back. FYI, I'm frickin' slow at sudoku. I'd like to know how to pronounce that, incidentally. My Mom say SA-DUE-KO. How can that be right? Any experts in Japanese feel free to weigh in now. Anyway, I'm hoping that sudoku will keep me from getting Alzheimers anytime soon. I'm totally serious.

So, back to Declan.

His birthday. Great gift. Sleepover party once he wasn't sick. Etc.

And then, I don't think I ever wrote about this, he tried out for and made a statewide travel hockey team. Pretty exciting. It required travel to Denver for practice one weeknight a week and on Saturday/Sunday for six weeks. Then we were all heading to Vancouver for a week in late May for a big tournament.

We were all very excited. Practices were to start today.

But all winter, Declan hasn't really been 100%. Fatigue, one cold/upper respiratory infection after another, general grumpiness--he's a kid who needs more sleep than your average bear--he just wasn't quite right.

Ten days ago, as much as I hated to do it, we put him on antibiotics for what we thought was a sinus infection. He showed some improvement, but on the last day of the antibiotics, he started getting sick again. WTF? I barked at him that he clearly wasn't washing his hands well enough at school and then touching his T-zone. Duh! Why do you do that? Blah, blah, blah.

Sunday night brought on a low grade fever, raging sore throat, and spots on his tonsils.

Monday morning we went to the doctor and they tested for strep. But I had this nagging feeling. I asked how likely it could be that he had mono. The doctor said unlikely, but that they'd test.

Positive for mono.

Ugh.

Even though the doctor said he could play hockey--his age level doesn't check yet, and he's the goalie anyway--we decided to pull him out and forgo our trip to Vancouver. Great disappointment all around--Declan for not playing hockey with this great team, Finn for not going to Vancouver (specifically with his friend whose brother also made the team), and us for. . .let's face it, missing Vancouver. I was psyched to go there.

Another time.

So now we're waiting for Declan to stop hacking and sneezing so he can go back to school and not infect the entire student population. Will it be tomorrow? Friday? I don't know.

But I do know that a Nintendo DSi apparently makes one feel a lot better in the face of disappointment.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

my parents used to plan our vacations in secret from me because otherwise inevitably I would be sick just as we were about to leave. There was one trip they had to reschedule twice - once was the chicken pox, another was an ear infection, and then when they finally went I had a fever.

1dreamr said...

Aww, that just stinks. I hope he's back to normal soon!

Anonymous said...

Delurking to comment - hi there!

Based upon the Japanese phonetics, the word "sudoku" is pronounced - SUE-DOE-KOO.

Lucinda said...

The math teacher next door does sodoku puzzles that are a full page! I call them her "so-dork-u" puzzles...

Hope everyone's getting healthy!