A Mother's Dilemma

Being a mom of four I have dealt with vomiting, upset stomachs, diarrhea, cramps, constipation and the like on more occasions than I can count. Leave now if your squeamish about such things. Usually I take it in stride but today my son has me worried.

First a little background on us in this arena. My rule about staying home sick from school has always been, "Unless you have a fever, diarrhea, or vomiting you are going." (Or bleeding out their eyeballs...name that movie!) Worked pretty well until my son figured out if he coughed hard enough, long enough he could trigger his gag reflex. He would dry heave, spit and say, "Mom  I puked." trying to get me to let him stay home. Didn't work because spitting doesn't equal vomit in my book. Then he started pulling is at school last year. Of course there were never any witnesses so they only had his word to go on and the school nurse was a doormat who believed every word he said. More often than not I ended up picking him up because I didn't want to be that asshole parent who refused to pick up their sick kid.

So school started here last Wednesday. He went, was fine & came home happy. Thursday morning he got up, ate breakfast then shortly after started complaining of a stomach ache but seemed genuinely distressed at possible missing the 2nd day of school. He did vomit a little without the aid of coughing first. He stayed home but as soon as the bus drove by he was back to his normal self and continued to be a pain in the ass the rest of the day. Friday he went to school with no complaints and never said one word all weekend about his stomach. Got up this morning, ate, and headed out with out complaint. This afternoon when he got home I asked how his day was, "Fine but now my stomach hurts." He ate half a banana and very soon after it came back up. I gave him some P*epto Bism*l and he laid around complaining that it felt like something was eating him from the inside. I sent him to take a warm bath and when I went to check on him I saw that he had vomited again leaving a nasty mess on the toilet. I gave him another dose of PB. When he got out of the tub he went straight to his room and apparently fell asleep of the floor. He woke up drank some water and fell asleep again. He has since gotten up and moved around but hasn't vomited again. He says he still feels a little nauseous and says he's in pain from his belly button down. No fever. Reports having a half solid, half diarrhea bowel movement earlier. Appendicitis and Gall Stones come to mind but so does 5th Grade-itis and Faker Flu.

I called the triage nurse at our pediatrician's office a couple of hours ago. No appointments were available in the after hours clinic best they could do is a 10:45 tomorrow morning. Of course she said  the ER is always an option but unless he's double over writhing in pain and/or dehydrated he should be OK until his appt. He is neither right now. We're going in even if he feels better in the morning. Something is up I just don't know what exactly.

Stomach bug? School jitters? Total fake? Gall Stones? Appendicitis? Nothing? Something? Last week's incident a total coincidence or related to today's illness? I don't know but I aim to find out.

Did I mention the twins start kindergarten tomorrow? Or that Hubby left for a hunting trip last Friday night and won't be back until Fri/Sat this week? Yeah, nothing going on  here this week.