Signs that your child is stressed

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Sam was described by everyone who knew him as a happy chubby eight year old boy. I, however, had never seen that side of him. My first encounter with him was in the hospital emergency department. He had been brought in by his parents with severe abdominal pain.

I turned to his mother,

‘When did it start?’, I asked.

‘About two hours ago’, she replied.

I touched his abdomen – he went into agonising screams.

I then gave him the strongest paediatric painkiller and we took samples of stool and urine to the laboratory for assessment as we gave the medication time to work.

As this was being done, I browsed through Sam’s file. He had been admitted three times in the past six months – all due to the same abdominal pain.

He had had all sorts of tests done on his blood, stool and urine, abdominal scans and allergy tests – all of which were normal.

By this time, his test results were back and as usual, everything was normal.

I went back to see if the painkiller had worked, only to find he was still in agony. So he was admitted for observation.

The next day, I found a young boy happily swinging in the playground calling for others to join him and to my surprise, it was Sam!

His mother told me that he had woken up that morning with no pain and had hungrily munched up all his meals! I knew of speedy recoveries but this was astounding. He went home the following day.

I had forgotten all about his case until three months later, when I was called to the emergency.

I quickly rushed to the child’s cubicle only to find the patient was none other than Sam. He was rolling in bed. Screaming. His mother looked haggard.

I examined Sam. Everything hurt. He had a fresh scar on his abdomen.