headaches

grady has been having short (30-60 second) periods of severe head pain over the last month. the stop-in-your-tracks-and-scream-type pain. he grabs his head and says "head hurt" or "bump head". he is acting completely normal before and after - like nothing ever happened. at first i thought it was nothing. i didn't witness the first few times, so i wasn't too concerned...and it was only happening every few days, so i didn't think much about it. however, after i witnessed it a couple times and it started getting more frequent, i became a little worried-it was scary to see. when it happened twice in one day, we decided to bring him to our pediatrician. still thinking it was probably nothing, i was interested to see what she had to say. we were told kids don't have headaches and migraines like adults do, so basically any child under 5 they have to rule out any major abnormalities...tumors, masses, lesions, bleeds, etc.

soooo....after a long week and a half of worrying, stress, doctors visits, trip to the ER, CT scan, neurology visit, and MRI...everything is NORMAL :-) it still doesn't answer the question of what is causing this, but for now, it's a HUGE relief!

grady has only had one more head pain in the last week (when we walked into the clinic for his MRI)...so they seem to be less frequent again. eyes, ears, and teeth all look good as well, so not sure exactly what is causing this. we will continue to monitor him and follow up with the neurologist in august. they said if it continues or gets more frequent again, they can put him on a medication that will help control the headaches over time. not much we can do for the pain, being it only lasts less than a minute and we have no idea when it will come. however, after talking to jon's family, there are a couple of boys on his dad's side of the family that have been worked up for headaches and it was found that they are a reaction to nitrates in certain foods (such as hotdogs). i have no idea if this is something that can be hereditary or not, but definitely something to look into.

i have learned over the last couple weeks, that this is only a minor bump in the road in the journey of mommy-hood. and i will never, ever, stop worrying about my children. if it's not one, it's the other. if it's not one thing, it's something else. but all i can do is pray each day for continued health for them.. and count my blessings on how lucky jon and i are to have two beautiful, healthy children.

...oh, and try not to be that psycho, overbearing mom sitting next to them in the doctors office or procedure room. because, when it's my children involved, i'm no longer a nurse. i'm just a mom. as much as i wanted to start sobbing while watching him go through everything, while feeling helpless i couldn't comfort him, i think i hold my composure well ;-)

about to get put to sleep for his MRI (only because he is too little to

 hold still for 30 minutes if awake).

wasn't quite sure what to think about the nice nurse anesthetist.

in recovery. they said most kids wake up from the sedation on their way to recovery, or within a few minutes after getting there. however, little did they know this was grady's normal nap time. we had to wake him up after 15-20 minutes :)