The life and times of Oscar Marcos Perez-Cytron. Born Thanksgiving Day 11/22/01.   Archives << current   If you want to add something to Oscar's baby-blog, send an email to megan@alpha60.com and we can set it up so you can post...

oscar's life   Monday, February 21, 2005 8:25 AM posted by Oscar   Aye mi madre, where to begin? Our world went topsy-turvy again this week. Before I launch into a protracted explanation of our adventures into the depths of the Spanish medical system, let me first reassure any of Oscar's worrysome family who might be reading along--all appears to be fine now. Bett and Dixon--Christian's mom and stepdad were visiting us this week--and oh what a week to be here. They arrived off the plane tired and sick. They spent a couple of days recuperating. We had just recovered from our flu and were feeling pretty good for the first time in a while. The day before they arrived the Basques had bombed a building in Madrid. A few days later a huge skyscraper basically burned down to the ground in a sort of omen, perhaps. Then on Wednesday--just as I was about to leave Oscar with his babysitter to go meet them at the museum--Oscar had a seizure. It was five minutes long and exactly like the one he had when he was a toddler. Except this time, he didn't seem to have a fever or appear sick at all--though he was exceedingly cranky the day before when we went to Toledo and didn't appear to be himself. We held on to Oscar until it subsided. Both of us were in shock, but knew what to do (unfortunately--Ludmila's husband just had a brain tumor removed this year and suffered from seizures, as well). I was very thankful to have her with me. I called Christian and told him to come home. When he got here, we went to the emergency room. They checked Oscar out and he had a low fever. They ran more blood tests and determined that he had some kind of bacterial infection (even though he was not sick at all at the time). They felt that even though there was no high fever at the time, it was a "febrile" seizure like his last one--which is not serious and is actually quite common in young children. They sent us home with antibiotics. Before we got a chance to dose him, he had another seizure at home, just as he was falling asleep (also very common). We called the hospital and they told us to come back if he had another. Afterwards, he had a higher fever. We gave him his antibiotics and ibuprofen. He hasn't had another seizure since. But he did finally get sick with a bad sore throat and quite high fever. Which was actually a bit of a relief, because it provided a more rational explanation for the seizure, since they very often occur right at the beginning of an illness. The next day we took him to the neurologist at the hospital to check him out. She said everything seemed fine--and agreed that it was most likely a febrile seizure. But just to be sure ordered two tests, an EKG (I think) and a CAT scan. Ah, but that's not the end of our odyssey... Yesterday morning, we went to the Prado with Bett and Dixson. Oscar has been begging me to take him to see the Velasquez painting--Las Meninas. So even though he wasn't feeling great, I took him along. He was really cranky and we realized when we left that his fever seemed to be skyrocketing again. When we got home, he had a temperature of 103.5 and really looked bad. He actually asked to be put to bed, which is completely unprecedented. He was also complaining that his neck hurt--pointing at the back of the neck, not his throat--one of the symptoms we were supposed to be watching for to make sure that he did not develop menegitis. So we decided to call Sanitas--our health insurance company. Oscar had been on the antibiotics four days and seemed worse, not better. They sent someone to do a house call. He didn't like the way that Oscar looked and was concerned about the neck thing. Off to the emergency room again... At this point, we had spent several nights hardly getting any sleep--not taking our eyes off him for a minute. So, we were totally exhausted and frazzled and I personally hit the wall--mainly because I wasn't even clear on what I was supposed to be most worried about anymore. Unfortunately, the only thing I know about menengitis is that kids die from it very quickly. Christian's coping mechanism sends him deep inside himself at these times--you kind of have to reach him as if you were yelling to someone down a well. I guess we complement each other well in that way. The doctor at the emergency room took a look at Oscar and she pretty much instantly knew he didn't have menegitis. ---------------------- An aside: this is a big cultural difference here. Doctors here still speak with a certain authority. An authority which comes from the fact that they are not worried about getting sued if they are wrong. So instead of getting the American waffling: "All indicators point toward a negative diagnosis, though in some cases, blah, blah, blah, horrible scary stuff, blah, blah." A Spanish doctor would say: "He doesn't have menegitis." ----------------------- A huge relief. By that time, the ibuprofen had kicked in again and he was more himself. For the second time, he got one of those IV things poked into him. He yelled "ay, guayaba!" ("Ay Guava!" a line from a Puerto Rican Willie Bobo salsa tune that he likes)--I told him he was brave and he said "I am NOT brave. I'm just a boy who is happy." They took another blood test to compare with the one from Wednesday to see if he was worse or better. Even though he seemed worse, he was better. His white blood cell count was lower and the infection was more under control--which ruled out menegitis definitively. All of this transpiring in a foreign language (not once has anyone here ever spoken English to us) and while being morbidly frantic/down-a-well would be comical if it weren't so damned traumatic. So, home we finally went again. Of course, we can't get enough of that place--Hospital San Rafael--and were back there again today for Oscar's CAT scan. I told him what it would be like, but he still got quite scared. He's been through so much the past few days.I think he thought that he was going to get stuck again. The put him on the little table that went into the huge doughnut-shaped thing and strapped his head down and put two big sponges on either side of his head to keep it still. He cried and cried. I tried to think of everything I could to calm him down. I told him he could have doughnuts when we were finished and that he could go to a toy store and pick out a toy horse or more legos (Why a toy horse? I have no idea... Maybe I was thinking of my own canister of toy horses that I had as a kid. I remember lining them up endlessly from biggest to littlest. Pondering just how to classify those that we lying down or rearing up...). The toy horse reference was strange enough that it got through to him and he instantly calmed down. The test lasted no more than five minutes. I told him he was brave and he said "I am NOT brave. I'm just a sponge." When they let us go, Christian was waiting outside. Oscar asked where his toy horse was. We took him in a cab to El Corte Ingles to go to the toy department. He ended up picking out a Tigger doll--the toy horse was forgotten, more evidence that it was more for me than him. He never did get over the fact that we lost his Tigger somewhere in the streets of Madrid last summer and often asks about him and wonders where he is and what he's doing. And sadly, the same happened at the hospital with "baby Spiderman" his favorite sleeping toy. Someday we'll have to write a story about all of these on-the-loose toys wandering the streets of Madrid. He played for a while on an old carousel that they have outside. He seems to have turned a corner and is feeling much, much better today and finally got a good night's sleep last night. He's happier than he has all week. Right now, he and Christian are taking a big, long nap. So on Wednesday we are going to see his first neurologist again. The one who put our mind at ease about his motor skills--which, incidentally, seem to be getting much better. He's going to run a test on his brainwaves (EEG? EKG? I can't keep them straight...) and check him out. He ran one of these tests a few weeks ago and all was well, which is a good sign. The CAT scan results will be available next Monday. The first neurologist thought that the CAT scan (ordered by the hospital neurologist) was total overkill--una tonteria, he said. But since it was already scheduled, we decided to go ahead and do it. So we're all doing okay now and aren't too worried. The fact that he has a history of febrile seizures is a strong indicator that the same thing happened this time. And these sorts of seizures are not serious at all. Christian had one as a child, too. They don't do any damage to the brain (in fact, in a study, kids who had seizures had higher IQs than those that didn't). I can't help but notice that once you enter into the medical system, it won't let go. You can keep getting test after test, but what can they really tell you? They're just like little snapshots in the dark. A flash of information that might make you feel better or worse temporarily, but won't really enhance your understanding of what life really is. I take maybe eight Ibuprofen a year and feel best when I don't deeply ponder how the body works. Normally, I try to live under the assumption that all is well and that things will work themselves out on their own... But once this notion gets undermined, it's hard to get that feeling back. And with a child you are much more insecure and vulnerable. So to recap for any masochist who has read this whole thing (Dad? Bett? Mom? Any other worry-worts out there?). There's really nothing to worry about at this point. No doctor has indicated that there is anything serious to worry about. And all who see Oscar think that he is very healthy (though quite loud-mouthed and gabby) and doesn't have any signs of any neurological problem at all. I mostly wanted to get this all down somewhere for future reference, since we'd like to begin to forget about the whole experience as soon as possible and get on with life. Monday, February 07, 2005 7:09 PM posted by Oscar   We're all finally on the mend. Last week was hellish, with all of us suffering from exhaustion, high fevers and even higher levels of crankiness. All mixed up with this, was the issue that I alluded to in my last post... A few weeks ago, Oscar's teacher brought it to our attention that Oscar is quite a bit behind the other kids in his class when it comes to running, jumping and climbing the stairs. We had also noticed that he trips a lot and is just a general clutz. I chalked it up to his Perez genes--there aren't a lot of stellar atheletes in the bunch and a lot of them run and walk like ducks (sorry familia, but it's true!). So we took him to the doctor to have him checked out. She didn't see anything obvious, but referred us to a neurologist so that they could check him out further. The neurologist didn't seem terrible concerned, but sent him to get some blood tests to make sure that there wasn't some kind of "pathology" causing the problem. Of course that set the wheels of worry into motion... We had to wait over week to get the results of the blood test--then we got the results on Friday and had to wait all weekend to see the neurologist to find out what they meant. I worked myself up into quite a frenzy of neurotic fears, envisioning problems that mostly didn't even make sense in retrospect. To make a long story short, all the tests came back fine and he doesn't have anything wrong (no tiene absolumente nada). Aside from the fact that he's still pretty clumsy, has one flat foot (pie plano) and is behind the other kids in his coordination. I can certainly live with that. Keep in mind that we had do do all of this in in Spanish, which we now understand very well, but still speak like crazy immigrants. The wonderful thing is that the doctors here are light years beyond their American brothers and sisters when it comes to bedside manner. They actually treat you like a human being and take the time to talk to you rationally and practically. I think this experience would have been more stressful in the US. Oscar now loves going to the doctor. I hope he isn't turning into a hypochondriac. Christian and I wonder if the problems don't stem from being pushed. Oscar doesn't like to be told what to do. I don't know where he gets that trait from. One of his favorite tactics is passive resistance. He'll just flop around like a fish or start acting like a vegetable when someone tries to get him to do something he is averse to doing. So we've decided to stop fighting with him so much and get off his case about little stuff. We don't force him to walk as much anymore. He's been in a much better mood and so have we.... Friday, February 04, 2005 1:49 AM posted by Oscar   So as to prevent this blog from being a repository of entirely positive, pollyanna-ish maternal reflections... These have been trying times... We have all been sick with the flu for a whole week. Oscar has been going through some pretty intense "control" issues. He's having some "aggression problems" at school. He's having some kind of motor-skill meltdown that causes him to have trouble climbing stairs and walking. At times, we feel stretched to the limits of patience and human goodness. I'm sure it's just another phase, but it's a hard one. We've been to lots of doctors about the "motricidad" issue. We should find out more tomorrow. This is the hardest stage that we've been through with him yet...