Summer Sickness

We are rarely sick during the school year (which is a huge blessing), but this summer has been particularly bad for Jonathan and Caleb.  First Jonathan has his staph infection on his scalp, followed by Lyme disease.  He's come to the end of his 30 days of antibiotics, and he seems to be doing well, thankfully.  He had more antibiotics in the past 6 weeks than he has had the entire rest of his life!  And he picked up some little virus while at Camp Caleb, but that passed quickly as well.  Hopefully the rest of the summer will be uneventful for him--he doesn't want to go back to Bethesda any time soon!

Caleb also picked up a virus at Camp Caleb, but he has not ever recovered.  His throat remained really sore, he ran a low-grade fever (99.4 usually) for awhile, and he's been really tired, taking naps in the afternoon.  I'm sure everyone is thinking what I was thinking at this point--mono--so I made an appointment for him last Tuesday.  They did a rapid strep test, which was "faintly positive", so he started on antibiotics as well.  The doctor also thought it sounded like mono, so she ordered a mono spot test, which is a blood test.

I was very surprised when she called Thursday to say that had come back negative, because Caleb is still not any better.  If anything, he said today that his throat feels even more sore, and all he ate yesterday was a bowl of oatmeal, since it hurts so much to swallow.  This is his last day of antibiotics, but there hasn't been any improvement.

I googled "mono spot test accuracy", and what I read said that the test is more accurate after 2 weeks of symptoms.  Caleb only got sick starting July 7, so it's just been 2 weeks now.  If he's not any better next week, I'll make another appointment and take him back in.  I know you can't do anything for mono, but it seems like it would be good to have it documented if it is in fact mono.

I got mono in the summer in between my freshman and sophomore years of college.  Bob and I were dating, although he never did come down with it.  I remember so vividly how sore my throat was.  At one point, I just wanted to cut my head off because I could NOT swallow, and I was so miserable.  Bob brought me Wendy's frosties, because at least I could get those down.  It was a horrible month.  Honestly, this seems like the direction Caleb is going, so I would be really surprised if it wasn't mono.  Poor guy!  I really am thankful this didn't happen during the school year.  It would not have been good for his academics!  Hopefully this will all be behind him by the time Rivendell starts back up again.