Jones has tonsilitis.

It started Tuesday morning.

Not too long after he'd gotten up, Jones came to me and said, "I wish I could go back to bed," so I cancelled our reservation for the gym nursery and told him to do just that. He rallied after a little nap, so we went to our church's Five Day Club. A little over halfway into it, however, he sat in a chair, leaned his head against the back of it, covered his eyes, and said, "I want to go home." I could tell he meant it, needed it, so we left.

Then came the fevers. He's had fever viruses almost every summer of his short life, so I wasn't too concerned that he'd spike 103.9 without any other symptoms. The fevers always responded to Ibuprofen, so I figured they'd last the typical four days and then vanish as quickly as they came on.

After two mornings of 4:30 wake up calls, though, I started to worry a little. He'd re-fever when his bedtime meds wore off and be up for an hour and a half waiting for the next dose to kick in. Then, he'd spend most every day laying lethargically around. Let's just say we have more than paid for our Amazon Prime account with all of the "Thomas" he's watched in the last week.

When this was still happening on Friday morning, I called the doctor's office. The nurse, who'd always before told me their protocol was to wait out fevers like this for four days, heard what was going on and said I should bring him in. Dr. O'Donnell was available at 2 p.m., so in we went.

As soon as Dr. O'Donnell saw his giant, white-covered tonsils, he said, "Well! There's the cause for his fever! Angry tonsils." He wasn't sure, though, what was causing the tonsils to be angry. He did know, however, that his spleen wasn't enlarged (apparently, a cancer indicator. EEK.), that his chest and heart were clear, and that his ears and nose were, too. That meant bloodwork - he tested for strep (though he didn't think it was that; "I almost never get a positive strep test this time of year," he told me) or mono and said if it wasn't either of those, it was likely tonsillitis.

Jones, I will have you know, did INCREDIBLY well with the finger prick for bloodwork. I anticipated a battle when the lab tech came in carrying her plastic case of sharp and pointy things. Jones proved me wrong, however, and handled it like a champ. Thank God.

Six minutes after Jones's finger was pricked, Dr. O'Donnell burst back into the room - "It's all good news," he led off. He showed me the results - everything looked normal, though his white blood cells were elevated. They weren't so elevated, though, that the doctor was concerned. Normal is 4-10 thousand or million (whatever); Jones's were 12.5. When I asked about that, Dr. O'Donnell said that 18-20 is a cold (30 is pneumonia), so the fact that it was 12.5 meant that the infection had almost run its course.

Dr. O'Donnell did say, however, that since none of the rest of the family has had a fever virus, he's wondering if Jones's "cyclical fevers" were actually undiagnosed tonsillitis, as well. That's why he tested for strep and mono - to document that it wasn't either of those things, so that if it flares up again, he can make the case for a tonsillectomy. He described it like this: Jones probably has these little pus pockets of infection that live in his tonsils, and every now and then, the pockets erupt like a volcano, creating the fever with no other symptoms. Within four days, his body has fought it off, but it hasn't killed the virus; the virus has just gone dormant - until it decides to erupt again.

He laid like this most of our
drive out to the lake.

So that's what he thinks we're dealing with. Of the alternatives, I'll take it!

The best part of the appointment - besides seeing Jones's perfectly healthy bloodwork! (thank You, God!) - was hearing that Dr. O'Donnell saw no reason we shouldn't proceed with our plans to head to the lake for the weekend, so that's just what we did. On Saturday, Jones's fever was gone, but his tonsils were still mostly white. They were back to normal on Sunday, however, and so was my (generally) sweet boy.

It's so good to have him back.