We arrived home from Mexico on Dec 2nd. On Dec 5th we attended the Shaw Family Christmas party. We got there around 10:00am and the venue was great! They had face-painting, cookie decorating, a craft station, a balloon character station, snacks, video games, bouncy castles and visits with Santa. Brandon seemed to be enjoying himself but after 30 minutes he started to complain of a headache. After only one hour he said he wanted to go home. Admittedly he didn't look well and his forehead felt warm to the touch. We decided to take him home and let him chill out. For the rest of the week, Brandon struggled to get well. He seemed to be fighting a nasty cold - just like every other kid in his Kindergarten class.
On Friday Dec 11th we attended his Summit Kids Christmas concert. OMG it was so cute! Brandon and his classmates sang "Up On the Rooftop" and "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" once in English and once in Mandarin. After singing they preformed a dance to a Shikira song. It was really cute stuff. Brandon was a pretty good performer all-in-all. He claims he likes to play outside more than he likes "being on stage" but he said he didn't feel shy or nervous about it.
The next day Brandon seemed to be getting better - like he was beating his cold - but on Sunday he was really sick. He was running a fever and feeling terrible. We kept him home from school on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday we tried to send him to school but I got a call in the early afternoon that he was running a fever. I ran to pick him up and we kept him home again on Thursday and Friday. This was Brandon's last week of school before the Christmas break and he ended up missing all the fun. I felt so bad for him. Every day he would run a temperature at about 3pm. He ate almost no food and was very lethargic. He spent his days huddling under a blanket on the couch.
As Christmas approached I started getting more worried. I kept calling the HealthLink for advise but they said unless he was vomitting, we probably didn't need to take him in. On Dec 21st I finally did get him in to see the doctor. He was given a very thorough exam but in the end they just didn't know what was wrong with him. They ordered blood tests and sent us home with instructions to keep him warm and hydrated.The first attempt to get blood was at a regular clinic. They couldn't find his vein and traumatized him (probably for life) with needles. Jamie ended up taking him to the Children's Hospital on Christmas Eve where they had success drawing blood. Brandon wasn't impressed but he did get a small Lego set and that helped things a lot.
Brandon was very excited for Christmas morning and he got us up to start the day around 6am. He was very pleased to see Santa had left him a remote control Monster Truck and an Arctic Lego helicopter set. Under the tree he found some awesome presents like a Lego watch, a light sabre, books, Lego, PJs and chocolate. Our morning was really fun and he even tried to eat a tasty breakfast with us.
Around 5pm we started to make our way to the Rawlyck's for Christmas dinner. As usual the house looked lovely and all the Rawlyck family members were there. Brandon tried to eat some dinner but was feeling quite poorly by then. Unfortunately we had to leave early to take our little man home. Once there we discovered Jamie's mom and sister had arrived. They had driven all day from Winnipeg and had made it safe and sound. We spent a couple of hours catching up with them before finally turning in for the night.
The rest of the holidays saw Brandon slowly getting better. The blood results came back showing he had a "raging infection" but there was nothing to be done about it expect rest and fluids.
So that was Christmas for 2015. I would describe it as kind of quiet. Given Brandon's illness we didn't go out sledding or even to Confederation Park to see the lights. We didn't go to the King George "Grand Marche" festival and Brandon wouldn't even watch "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" with me. Did he at least believe in Santa Claus this year? For me that's hard to say. He certainly asked a lot of questions like "how does Santa eat all of those cookies?" or "how does Santa visit all the kids all over the world in one night?" Jamie thinks he'll let us know when he no longer believes but I'm not so sure. Brandon is too smart to reveal if he knows the jig is up. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't risk losing out on all the "Santa presents" just to let us know the truth. He's crafty like that ;-)
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