take 2 advil and...

They poked & prodded & ran tests & gave him IV fluids & a sedative & 3 or 4 more prescriptions & sent him home saying give him advil every 6 hours & his labs are normal & they can't do anything else.

There has to be something else.

He's suffering. No child should suffer like this. He screams & cries & writhes & whines. Then he coughs & kicks & cries some more. He's gotta have a horrible headache on top of it all.

Lars' godmother Lisa had a good question: Would they take his pain more seriously if he could articulate it? Or if he could clobber them or run away? If he didn't present so infant-like, would they be less apt to subliminally think, "just a baby crying; all babies cry"?

I think there's some kind of big picture issue here that all of us are missing.

We've just been discharged from his birth-to-3 neurologist (DuPlessis), and moved to his 3-to-adult neurologist (Coulter) whom we haven't seen yet. Nonetheless I'm going to call tomorrow, and request a consult or urgent visit. Maybe while we're in the building at the allergy clinic (9 a.m.) we'll just take the elevator up a few flights & see what we can do. I keep thinking about the senior GI doc whom we saw very briefly as he rounded with his fellow, who said he's seen kiddos present as if they had GI pain & after a full GI workup, it turned out to be neurological. He then passed those patients on to neurology & didn't have any information about diagnoses, outcomes or treatments.

Lars' breath smells funny, like too sweet. Is it the pediasure we've been coaxing him to drink? Someone once mentioned to me that sweet breath is the sign of something bad, but I don't remember what, nor who told me. (If you're a friend reading this & it was you, let me know please.)

Here's the bonehead quote of the day: "You should try prunes." -Clueless local doc covering for our regular pediatrician. He handles Lars like you might handle a CPR training doll.

This is really hard.

Thanks for rootin' for us.