On April 24th, my eldest son had his 5th grade vaccine. Within 2 days his entire body was on fire. Every joint in his body was aching and he was crying continuously. My husband and I didn’t know what to do. I took him to the pediatrician and asked him to take every conceivable blood test he could think of before I took my son to a psychiatrist.
It turned out he had positive ANA. We turned to the pediatric rheumatologists. The top one finally drugged him into some relief by giving him adult strength Relafen, an anti-inflammatory, twice a day. Finally, after seeing the top 2, 2 orthopedists, and a neurologist we figured out that he had had an intense adverse reaction to the Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus vaccine.
In addition to the joint pain and the constant crying, he also developed an acute sensitivity to touch or pain. His body began to misread pain so that a slight touch felt like an adult’s punch.
In the meanwhile he developed an anxiety problem about his own body. All the doctors said that it was a totally normal response because that is when anxiety should come into play.
Yes, but they aren’t living with him.
These past 2 months have been amongst the greater challenges of my life. We passed the easy part, researching and researching and researching until we found the answer even though everyone told us to just accept the pain. I am doing a much poorer job of maintaining my patience with him. Instead of comforting him and empathizing, I am often leaving him to fend for himself.
It has been so difficult to watch and yet I am fighting my own exhaustion every day as my response to the thyroid medication becomes poorer and poorer. I am not taking 4 times as much thyroid medication as I was about a year ago and the results are worse. The radiation damage just keeps giving and in the meanwhile, it is my son or rather my 3 sons who suffer.
How can I live up to the challenges that their lives presents to them when I still continue to suffer from the impact of the cancer treatment?
Along the way in the process of taking my eldest to all these doctors, our history was given. The neurologist asked a lot of questions about how my son processed my breast cancer 3 years ago. She said that she thought some of his anxiety about his own body was a leftover worry about mine.
I hear her comments ringing in my ears all day long. I have tried these years never to feel sorry for myself or to feel angry….and it has not been a struggle until lately. I knew pretty quickly after my diagnosis that my breast cancer was ‘self-imposed’ due to my fertility treatments. It was never a big mystery to my about why I had cancer or what I had done to ‘deserve’ it….In fact, I always wondered about the anger so many women seemed to have about the disease until these past few months.
My anger and rage is bubbling over or is it my guilt that my actions did this to myself and then have made my children suffer so much?
I need a higher thyroid dose….Thank you for allowing me to vent dear readers.
