This sweet boy has been home sick for the past week with the flu. Being stuck in bed for days at a time is hard for anyone, but especially when a super active 14 year old. Being still is not one of his favorite activities. Never has been. But it gets worse.
Not only did he miss school most of the week. He also came down with a strange rash all over his body. Odd, I thought. Maybe it was just a typical reaction the body has after breaking such a high fever. Two days after the rash, he wakes up and says his legs are killing him. He can barely walk. Literally. He was hobbling around like an old man in great pain.
He said his calf muscles were in tremendous pain and he couldn't move them or put weight on them without excruciating pain. Our first thought was dehydration. That would make sense after being so sick for so many days in a row. We practically drowned him in Gatorade and water. But by the end of the day he was worse off than when we started.
The monkey wrench in this whole thing is that this was the very last weekend of basketball tournaments for the season and for all of his 5 years in traveling basketball. It was kind of a big deal. He really wanted to play at the State Tournament and we couldn't blame him. But what about the whole legs not working thing? This could be a problem.
We were at the Doctor's office first thing Saturday morning asking if he should play ball this weekend. We didn't want him to do permanent damage to his muscles if he tried playing. I had done a little research the night before and had a suspicion of what the problem might be. I mentioned it to the Doctor and she agreed.
The blood tests results came back positive for Myositis. A very rare complication of the flu virus. It is an inflammation of the muscles, usually on both sides of the body. Thankfully, it was only centralized in his calf muscles. As with any virus, it just takes time to run it's course. No muscles were damaged because the Doctor wouldn't allow him to play basketball. Now, on Sunday, he's already walking much better. But man, is it nerve wracking! Every parent wishes they could take the pain for their child. To his testament, he didn't complain, he didn't feel sorry for himself, he just spent time reading and watching college basketball. We got lots of good time together and found something to be thankful for even in the midst of this unfortunate circumstance.
