There is no better evidence of what I see in my own practice than what happens with a child’s body when a container full of vomit runs into the food, water or toilet.
Take, for example, our 11-year-old daughter, Mirella. When she ate a potato, she sat in the tub of snowpiercer yogurt in her stomach for 30 minutes. She was recovering from an outpatient surgery to treat a congenital bladder condition. So, when she went to eat that snowpiercer yogurt, she went to the toilet to see if it had been digested. When she saw that it hadn’t, she ran to a kitchen cupboard, where she swallowed her constipation-causing laxative. It was just her last stool when she stumbled into my office with voracious-looking blood shot eyes. Her CT scans showed a high-grade tumor of adult bladder cancer.
We were blessed enough to get Mirella into surgery with a bladder tube into the blood vessel in her stomach and that option is now off the table for her. Now, we are in a situation where she is often nauseous and can’t stay awake if we plan a routine visit. She also has no hair and can’t fully participate in usual activities. I know parents will be shocked at what they read in this article. But I want you to understand that it’s not only about one child. It’s a lack of knowledge about what to do when you think your child is sick.
Also, the CDC reports the number of children with Cerebral Edema is up 35 percent this year from last year. That means a lot of parents of sick children could have been getting bad advice or no advice. I worry about the numbers because many of these kids go to school in the same day they get sick. We can never let our doctors and nurses handle more than 40 cases of fever and other stuff.
So I can’t blame medical professionals for being hesitant. I just want you to stay connected to what you are seeing and letting us know when you want more advice. The more we hear, the more able we are to advise.