Update on Will

Will had been doing pretty well since he has been out of the hospital.  He started school on a Wednesday and by Friday after school we could tell he was in pain/worn out.  On Sunday he was miserable during church and was even crying when people started clapping.  He said the noise bothered him.  The rest of the day on Sunday we could tell that he just didn’t feel right so we tried to keep him mellow.  On Monday morning he didn’t want to go to school.  I finally got out of him that he didn’t like lunch because of the noise.  I e-mailed his teacher and let her know the new issue with noise.  By Monday afternoon I had a call from the nurse that Will had a headache and was in her office.  She had him lay down in a dark room for a while which seemed to help.  He said his headache started when he was outside for a short time and then got worse when he went to music.  His teacher called me on Tuesday to talk about what to do.  Since we were going to the doctor on Wednesday we decided to wait it out to see what they said. 

On Wednesday morning Will had his follow-up with neurosurgery.  The neurosurgery office is in St. Louis Children’s Hospital so he was nervous about going.  He thought he would have to stay and he kept saying in the car that he didn’t want shots.  Once the Nurse Practitioner came in he was acting goofy the entire time, which is what he does anytime he is nervous.  The Nurse Practitioner was great.  We had so many questions and she took about 30 minutes just talking to us before she examined Will.  She even showed us his MRI and where the bleeding was present in his head and along his cervical spine.  The noise and light sensitivity is completely normal for this type of injury.  She wants him to continue to go to lunch because the ultimate goal at this point is to get him to be 100% at school.  She wants him to rest for 20 minutes a day in the nurses office as needed.  She said he will have good days and he will have bad days and it could take another 6-8 weeks before the headaches and neck pain are completely gone.    He cannot play sports, participate in PE or play at recess for another 4 weeks.  We are going to Silver Dollar City in a few weeks, which means he cannot ride any rides.  He can go swimming and on the boat, just no water sports.  He can also do small thing like shoot hoops and start riding his bike.  Overall he is doing great, it’s just important to prevent another injury while this one is still healing.  He needs to continue his nerve/seizure medicine until we follow-up with neurology in 2 more months.  He is not more susceptible to hemorrhages after this incident.  She said that they rarely see Will’s type of injury from a fall and that it was just a fluke.  Will goes back to neurosurgery in another month and we hope he will be released from restricted activity at that time.  Dale and I feel so much better after this appointment and we are very grateful Will will make a full recovery.