At the er with rayce, who has a bad headache in one spot in his head. Dr said it's probably nothing, but they dont cat scan kids anymore because it drastically increases the chance of inoperable brain cancer. Headaches in my six year old terrify me =-( more later when i'm not typing on my phone
*~Bonnie Lea~*


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So, yes. Rayce came to me complaining of a bad headache while we were at Brooke's birthday party. The timing worried me, for him to notice it while he was busy playing and having a good time. Rayce does seem to be prone to headaches. I thought it was because of his eyes and that the glasses would help, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Again last night he came to me and said that his head hurt bad. He had been running around playing, and all of a sudden sat down next to me, there were tears in his eyes, and he showed me where it hurt on his head, a small area on the left side of his head. Ugh. I hemmed and hawwed for a little while then I decided I wasn't going to be able to sleep if I didn't take him in. Rayce was not happy with that decision, he made the process of leaving as difficult as possible, went limp, refused to put his coat on, cried and yelled and said his head didn't hurt anymore.

I think he is afraid of hospitals because the last time he saw Anthony, they were carrying him out on a stretcher to take him to the hospital. Rayce asked if he was dead. I told him no, they were taking him to the hospital to try and make him better. At that moment, I didn't know he was dead. I thought they wouldn't be taking him to the hospital if he were. I thought they thought they could save him.

How I thought that after watching them shock him 5 or 6 times with no response, I have no idea.

Adrenaline, denial, shock, and fear, I suppose.

The Dr said they don't do CAT scans on kids anymore unless absolutely necessary, like if they've passed out or have vomiting after a head injury. He said the scans increase the risk of a certain brain cancer from 1 in 10,000 to 250 in 10,000, or 2.5%. He said that last year in June, he diagnosed 2 teenagers with this brain cancer (they had both had CT scans done around the ages of 4-6, for minor head injuries after which they *didn't* pass out or have vomiting or dizziness or anything), and both were dead by August.

(I read something similar in Reader's Digest several months ago, about how doing these scans has more risk than people realize, and that the scans themselves would cause cancer in X% of people who had them done in any given year, so they shouldn't be done unless absolutely necessary and you should ask if there is any other testing that can be done to avoid the CAT scan)

They gave him a dose of motrin, told me to keep a close eye on him, wake him up a couple times during the night, and bring him right back if he became lethargic or started vomiting or having any dizziness.

So, I'm glad they didn't do a scan, I guess, because of that.

BUT Charlize has had 2 CAT scans. Once when she was 9 months old and her head didn't grow at all in between well baby visits, and once when she was 2 years old when she hit her head when Rayce stood on the side of a shopping cart and it tipped over. She started puking immediately and of course we went to the ER immediately, and they did a CT scan. AND she's had chest x-rays, three of them, I think, once when was a baby and was having terrible respiratory issues and two last year when she swallowed some pledge and had to have 2 chest x-rays 8 hours apart to make sure the chemicals in the pledge didn't cause her lungs to fill with fluid (which whatever chemical does if they ingested enough). So now I'm scared about that.

The Dr also said that given what happened to Anthony, the kids should start being scanned (the girls a year after their periods are regular, and the boys at about 25, which is when their bones finish densening up (is that a word) which  is when they've officially stopped growing). He said that he remembers reading a medical article lately that studies have shown that individuals with weaknesses in their (insert the name of whatever I can't remember... circulatory? cardiovascular?) system, it tends to catch up with them around the age of 30, give or take a few years, and he asked me if my husband was 30. I told him he died a week shy of his 30th birthday, and he just said wow. So, yes, individuals who are prone to this weakness in the arteries in their heads just basically tend to tip over and die around the age of 30, from these bleeds in the brain.

So the kids should be scanned when they're older to make sure they don't have any signs of the same type of issue that could have caused what happened to Anthony.

*Sigh*

There is just no end to the fears that come with being a parent :o(