Swollen Balls

On Wednesday we went for a lovely long bike ride with some friends. Part way to our destination was a big downwards hill which the 3 older kids whizzed off down on their bikes. Mini Man decided he would follow despite my shouts of protest about it being too steep and his brakes not being good enough to stop on gravel. But no, in typical 4 year old fashion, he knew best, until half way down when he realised that he was going far too fast, couldn’t stop and panicked.

You’ve guessed it, he came a cropper. We knew it was going to happen and were helpless despite racing down the hill after him.  The worst bit was he was running away down a gravel hill and I had visions of him being skinned alive.  Thank god for a quick thinking 10 year old though who blocked Mini Man’s descent with his bike and veered Mini Man into the grass verge. He came off in a heap of bikes and was clearly very shocked but other than a few nettle stings, relatively unscathed.

However, within about 5 minutes Mini Man was shivering and shaking and not even chocolate and a drink helped, so we decided it was shock, he then moved from the shivering into a raging temperature which is definitely not associated with shock. He had a headache but didn’t hit his head and just wanted to curl up under a tree and lie there.  In the end I gave up on our day out, called the emergency taxi (Grandad) and abandoned the bikes chained to a tree. Mini Man slept for 3 hours and woke as bright as a button. The temperature returned before bed and a good dose of Calpol soon helped that and he had a good nights sleep.

As he had been a little under the weather following the bike fall, I decided on Thursday to have a quiet one and took him and Little Man to see Cars 2 at the cinema. It was really good but when we got up to leave Mini Man started hobbling saying his winkie was really hurting.  Halfway back to the car, he was howling and bent double and on inspection his right ball was about 3 times its normal size. I took him straight to our doctors who then sent him to the children’s ward for assessment.

Swollen ball disappeared between the doctor’s surgery and the hospital and we are talking a distance of about 200 yards here. 5 hours and 3 doctors later they decided we could go home and just return to A&E if it came back. We got as far as the end of the car park and he was doubled over again, howling. So round we turned and back into A&E, and up to the ward. Luckily swollen ball made an appearance long enough to be seen by a doctor who promptly called her consultant in from home.  He arrived within half and hour but as you have probably guessed, swollen ball had done a disappearing act and Mini Man was charging around right as rain again.

We were admitted and observed overnight, and then he was taken for an ultrasound this morning which showed diddly squat. Just as we were waiting for the final examination for discharge, swollen ball put another appearance in, so we are now waiting to hear if we are going to be transferred to Leeds General Infirmary for further assessment, the saga goes on! The temperarture is just being viewed as conicidence.

I am incredibly pleased I have my laptop; however there is no wifi and no phone reception on the ward unless I hang out of the playroom window. I intend to post this via this method by riding my laptop off my phone’s 3G connection – don’t I sound technical!