I write this, not as an instance of TMI about our family, but as a plea to parents, schools, and our government to take the mental health of kids seriously. To be blunt, we have been experiencing some issues for some time now with our youngest child, a smart, silly, outgoing eight-year-old boy, and have just now gotten answers. If it had been his heart, his head, or even Covid for crying out loud, we would have gotten answers weeks ago. But, anxiety? In a happy little boy? It didn’t cross anyone’s mind.
It mostly started over the kids’ holiday school break, although we had been seeing smaller things for awhile: breaking down over not being able to find something, crying in the evening because he didn’t know an answer on his math worksheet, not wanting to go to school, or really anywhere, endless questions and more crying when we went for flu shots. On this particular day, we had to get the boys tested for Covid. They had been exposed at their after-school program earlier in the week and we had quarantined and waited the requisite amount of days before having them tested. It was a Sunday, usually our favorite day of the week for relaxing and hanging out together. The kids were eating their only-allowed-on-Sundays crap cereal at the breakfast bar and I was standing on the other side, chatting with them and saying typical mom things like, “stop fooling around” and “hurry up and eat, we have to get there right at 8:00 because there’s always a line.” I noticed my little guy had put his head down, practically into his cereal bowl, and was starting to lean sideways into his brother. Assuming he was being silly, I said his name. He didn’t respond. When I saw his eyes roll back in his head, I dove. I made it. I caught him before he fell off the stool. I got him onto the floor, now unconscious, and screamed bloody murder for my husband, who was upstairs. The good news is, he woke up quickly. I cried tears of relief when he looked at me, eyes like saucers and face pale. He started screaming. I scooped him up out of sheer adrenaline, as he’s eighty pounds, and sat with him on the couch, trying to calm him. Trying to calm myself. At this point my husband was with us, asking me annoying questions that I didn’t know the answer to. It was so fast. I couldn’t articulate to him what I’d seen. My husband told me that I had to put him down because he couldn’t tell which one of us was shaking. Spoiler alert: it was me. At this point, I’m convinced we all have Covid and that this is a crazy new symptom in children. We take the boys to urgent care because it is way closer than the hospital and now we know we need Covid tests. We explained what had happened, along with their previous exposure earlier in the week. We are able to get them right in and my sweet boy gets checked all over. He is fine. Not a thing is medically wrong with him as far as they can tell. Covid tests are both negative. Phew. But, wait…..what the fuck just happened then? No one knows. A fluke, perhaps.
Fast forward to two weeks later. Our little man has been mostly himself, minus a few instances of freaking out over something silly, but we are generally able to calm him. There was also one night when he could not stop worrying about school the next day, crying in his bed, and the only way to get him to sleep was to let him in our bed, a practice we had never before partaken in as parents. It’s a Friday and we are taking a mental health long weekend. My husband is working until noon and when he gets home we are picking the kids up early from school and heading to Vermont. The boys are again eating breakfast, this time at the table, my husband is in the kitchen getting ready to head to work, and I am on couch watching the news, blissful in a bathrobe with a hot cup of coffee, grateful for the extra day off with nowhere to rush to. A commercial for a drug comes on and they inevitably start listing the side effects at the end. Our youngest child, inquisitive as ever, asks what side effects are. We answer. He asks more questions. We vaguely answer, not feeling the need to worry him with something no one in our house even needs. Next, I hear the words, “Something’s happening,” issue from a little voice at the table. I turned to look at him, but too slowly. I watched as if in slow motion as my sweet boy fell to the floor, powerless to stop it, his forehead taking the brunt of the fall. My husband made it to him first. I watched helplessly as my husband flipped him over onto his back. It was like watching someone turn over a wooden plank; his limbs stiff while his body was unconscious. Within seconds he was awake again, in the arms of his dad who was sitting on the floor in full suit and tie. He cried. He wasn’t confused; he knew where he was, what happened, and who was holding him. He was simply terrified. Knowing my baby was in good hands, I ran up the stairs to put some clothes on and was back in seconds. We were going to the emergency room this time. I was not fucking around.
The ride seemed endless, and I drove (a stick, no less) while reaching a hand back to hold his. He was still shaken and forever a moment away from more tears. My voice shook as I spoke with the receptionist. They saw him immediately. After several hours, an EKG, a CT, and blood work, he was released. It was not a seizure. Every test was perfectly normal. What the hell was going on? We followed up with his pediatrician on the following Monday, who has referred us to a pediatric cardiologist, only out of an abundance of caution due to my husband’s hopefully-not-genetic heart condition, but after a very long conversation about what led to these episodes, his doctor is fairly certain that the whole thing is stress and anxiety-induced.
Let that sink in. A happy, healthy, eight-year-old little boy. Things are happening in the world that he can’t understand. His little brain can’t comprehend all the bad things he hears every. Single. Day. His body has twice now shut down as a coping mechanism. It’s incredibly concerning. Our children are listening. They don’t need to hear how everyone is going to die of Covid. They don’t need to hear that they’re going to go to school and basically be responsible for their teachers’ deaths. They don’t need to constantly be worried about mom and dad getting sick, wondering who will take care of them. It’s enough. Be safe. Follow protocols. Talk about something else. Somehow, I don’t think we will fully understand the repercussions of all this for many years. If this is happening to my well-adjusted child who lives in a happy home, how are the kids who are not so lucky dealing with it all? These are children. We are supposed to take care of them, not the other way around.
I want to be very clear: he is OK. He is medically just fine. He’s back to randomly bursting into song and dance. But, now we live in fear of what will trigger another episode. I find myself turning off the news when he comes into the room. We skirted the fact that his brother needed another Covid test. We make jokes and try to keep it light, but he won’t be with us every hour of the day. Please, let’s take care of our kids’ mental health the same way we are taking care of their physical health. Now I have to go buy him an emotional support kitten.
Let's Be Dramatic 