Tonya Matthews

Hi

I've been a member for a while and am trying to learn each day and
am on this unschooling journey. I've been wondering what you
seasoned unschoolers would do/ do in the situation I'm in right now.

My oldest, Christian (11 1/2), caught a strep infection. It ended up
in a lymph node on the right side of his face/neck area. Tuesday, he
went to the dr, rapid test for strep came back neg/ rest ,etc etc
was the instructions. By Wed, the swelling and discomfort was much
worse so I called in and they put him on antibiotics. Thurs the
extended test finally came back and was positive. By Friday,
Christian looked like he was growing another head on the right side
so he went back to the dr. They sent him (with my husband) to the
ER. I finally got out of work and was there with him at 7.

I could go on and on with the crazy experience we had but my bottom
line question is this. How do seasoned unschoolers handle situation
like this? I thought about all of you when Christian was fretting
about getting an IV put in. Also when he had to have a CT scan (at
least it was the open kind and I stood in the room w/him) When he
was being admitted. Etc etc..

He's on the mend now, just to make sure I add that!, but it looks
like he won't be able to come home until 48 hrs worth of IV
antibiotics are administered which brings us to Mon am. He's VERY
unhappy with that but, like they said, it's important to make sure
it's totally under control before he leaves. ( I had a strep
infection in my finger about 3 yrs ago and it VERY QUICKLY got
serious and I landed in the hospital for two and a half days! Argh!)

He's doing MUCH better, it isn't an abcess, like they feared, and
he's much closer to 'himself' than he has been in DAYS so we are
very thankful BUT he had to go through many things he didn't want
to, that he didn't feel comfortable about. He did them all, though.
There was no traumatic struggle or anything like that. I listened to
him and tried to comfort him. I was with him the whole time (besides
tonight, when my husband is there b/c I've not had much sleep in two
days with all of this and don't want to land in the hospital
myself). I stayed until I knew he was doing better and all the
results were in. I couldn't leave before that. And, for the record,
he's totally fine with my husband staying in place of me.

So, there are procedures that one has to go through. How does a
parent respect and honor the child but still make 'the executive
decision' for them?

Thanks
Tonya