Pin the Tail on the Donkey a/k/a "What's Wrong Nicky"

Last night Nicky's fever flared again...he slept though the night, with no problems, woke up in a good enough mood, he had no apparent signs of illness and at 10:00 he was doing good at school. Still something was not right. That combined with my fear that we might miss something medically important meant that we were headed back to the doctor, no matter how good Nicky appeared.

At 10:45 we returned to the doctor and after an excellent medical version of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" - complete with lots of tests - the mystery was solved. Yippee, Nicky had a mild case of pneumonia. Now the fever made since, the cranky kid made since, and the return of illness after the antibiotics made since. We had treated the ear infection, which was also inadvertently treating the pneumonia, but it just was not enough. So the ear infection went away but the pneumonia lingered. The good news is, it makes since now and he should be in great shape in 24 to 48 hours!

Now we can both sleep :-)

Note to myself and others:

• Accept the Process: I didn't much like Pin the Tail on the Donkey as a kid, and I like it even less as an adult forced to use it as the method to diagnosis what's wrong with Nicky. Such modern times and this is about the best we can do. The good news is it can work

• Always Follow Your Gut: Despite all the ways in which Nicky appeared normal and regardless of the possible explanations, I was not convinced that we had found all the problems and we had not.
  

• We Are Their Voice: This is a perfect example of parents knowing our kids the best. We know those little things that signal something is just not right. For Nicky it was the low tolerance and the non verbal noises (which by the way are kinda like nails on a chalkboard for me). We have to speak for them and just keep asking questions until we are satisfied, because we are the closest thing to a voice our kids have.