The waster

Well, we now have a diagnosis for Mr. Sickly McLieAbout-- Lyme disease.

When I took him to the doctor on Monday, I had to hold him down forcibly to have his blood drawn for a variety of tests. It was not one of the most pleasant parenting moments I've had, I assure you. Even when he was announcing to the 2 nurses and the lab technician that he was "postponing this! This is postponed!" and everyone was trying to stifle the snickers, it was not pleasant. Only with the promise of seeing the lab and the microscope, and the opportunity to run his own urinalysis, did he relent and allow a couple small vials to be filled.

The initial test indicated that his blood count was normal, so that was good-- no cancer. The inflammation test was high, but was a non-specific test so it couldn't explain the inflammation, only announce its presence. There was also a Lyme test being done, but only because it is summer, and not because he was really presenting with Lyme symptoms other than the exhaustion.

I received a call yesterday saying that if the Lyme test came back negative they might want to do a chest x-ray to rule out juvenile onset rheumatoid arthritis. Ugh! And then this morning we came home from soccer camp (Hey, he still wants to go every day. I'm not a terrible mother.) to a message from the doctor saying the Lyme results were "interesting".

Apparently, "interesting" means "positive" and now Sebastian will be taking 3 weeks of antibiotics. The weird thing is that I never saw his bulls eye rash until today after the diagnosis. Being the 6 and a half year old that he is, I no longer dress him, or wipe his butt, or spend a lot of time around his nakedness. But today I happened to come around the corner when he was seated on the toilet to see a round mark on his hip.

So now I guess I'll go read some frightening information on the Internet so I can feel less relieved that I at least know what the problem is.