It started with a simple headache. My preteen son started complaining that he was having this random headache. It seemed that the headache would come late in the afternoon while playing video games. I did not chalk it up to just growing pains as some would later suggest. My son never had a headache before requiring pain reliever and this was new for him. It was summer and I thought that maybe it was caused by sitting close to the tv playing video games more frequently or perhaps with the heat and poor air quality maybe it was an allergy/sinus headache. The headache would come randomly for the next few weeks and each time I would search for answers from friends and family. Sinus headache, dehydration, too much caffiene were some of the common suggestions and some even suggested that maybe he needed glasses.
One Wednesday night, my son came out of church complaining that something was wrong with his eye. All evening it was watering and it looked a little puffy and red. The next 2 days, he would wake up with nothing wrong with his eye and by the end of the evening his eye would become puffy, red and watery. And the headache was not going away. Saturday night before bed the headache was so bad that he wanted me to take him to the hospital. So I took him to the ER and they treated him for conjunctivitis (pink eye) since they couldn't see anything in his eye. The cream for the conjunctivitis didn't help his eye and for the next few days, my son became exceedingly tired and complained of a constant headache. He was also having pain above his left eye to the touch. We looked it up and found out that it was a symptom of a sinus infection. Finally some answers! The next day was Thursday and we took him to his pediatrician. She diagnosed him with a sinus infection. We began the Amoxicillin immediately.
It seemed that my son took a turn for the worse once we started the antibiotics. He barely woke up all day Friday and began having fevers and vomiting. Friday night his fever hit 102.1 and he was having a hard time communicating with us. We assumed this was due to the fever. The next morning, he woke up feeling a whole lot better. He actually came downstairs in the morning and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. At some point he said he was going back upstairs to sleep and I noticed that he was kindof stumbling around. I asked him what was wrong and why he was stumbling and he said that his foot was asleep. I asked him if it felt like it was waking up and he said yes. Then he headed upstairs. Several hours later he came down and said that his foot was still asleep and now up to his knee was really painful. He described it like when your leg falls asleep for too long and it hurts when it starts to wake up. I then asked him where his head was hurting and he said in the back of his head. I immediately called my husband and told him I would be taking the kids with me to the ER. I had assumed that they would give us stronger antibiotics and send us home. But by the time I got the other 6 kids ready to go Tristan could barely walk on his right leg anymore. Once at the hospital, he couldn't willfully move his toes, foot or knee. It was all happening so rapidly.
Imagine 6 kids besides my son (3 of which are 3 and under) at the hospital in a tiny little room in the ER, the amount of chaos was really distracting. At one point the Dr. came in to talk to me after the CAT Scan and I just couldnt focus because of the 2 preschoolers hiding behind the curtain and laughing and screaming at eachother. He says to me in a really firm voice "MOM, I'M GOING TO NEED YOU TO FOCUS ON WHAT I AM SAYING TO YOU". The tone in his voice snapped me out of my distracted state. He spent the next few minutes telling me what they found on the CAT Scan. And then he says that they are transferring him and I really should consider calling someone to come and get the other children.
Tristan's sinus infection had seemed through the bone above his left eye and had caused pus to build up in his brain cavity between his brain and skull. The fluid was putting pressure on parts of the brain that controlled cognitive speech and his right leg function. They quickly transferred him by ambulance to Brenner's Childrens hospital and by 4am he was having brain surgery to remove the excessive amount of fluid that was building up. After the surgery, he was put on extensive antibiotics and we remained in the ICU for 5 days until he was well enough to be admitted to the regular adolescent floor. We remained in the hospital for another 6 days before they sent him home with a pic line (longterm iv) and 3 different antibiotics which I had to administer every 6-8 hours intravenously. (pic is of the 41 staples in his head 11 days after surgery)
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