What, If Anything, Is Going On?

So I get to school to pick Leo up on Thursday evening and I'm asked to speak with the Deputy??? It was very strange, as anyone will tell you, it feels like you're back in your own school days, not those of your 4 year old son.

After discussing how traumatised Leo was when one of the other children was showing a photo of their new baby sister who had a tube in their nose, we then had to discuss a horrendous incident which resulted in Leo biting the Head and both punching and scratching one of his favourite teachers.

Now this kind of behaviour was last seen when Leo was first diagnosed last May, when he was incredibly angry with me as he blamed me for being back in England and could not understand why I had been in hospital and now he was. We managed it then with some useful anger management strategies including telling him it's okay to be angry and that if he wanted to hit something, he was to hit a pillow. Very quickly, but not easily, his anger calmed.

However on this occasion, he's hitting out at other people with whom he has built trust and also happy relationships. This incident is also built on the fact he's been more clingy with me over the past 10 days, certainly has a cold plus has repeatedly said he'd like to go to hospital because he's sick again. Unfortunately he also started telling me he had a big eye again (but there's no obvious swelling or poking out of his right eye at this stage so no dreadfu concern but partner this info with everything else and you cannot help but have awful thoughts going on).

To add to this, he has a cough and today he asked me to turn the CD off in the car because he wanted to tell me that sometimes he feels like he cannot breath?! (Do not panic, H....ask him another question with no sign of concern....; this was my internal chat with myself once he'd said this). And so he went on to say he sometimes feels like he cannot breath and it's not his cough and so I asked if he had pain anywhere and he said his neck hurt. All a bit odd and not really what you want your 4 year old son telling you.

During the incident at school, he had also put his hands round his own throat and was saying 'you're hurting me, you're hurting me', which we had taken to him trying to get a reaction from his teacher who was trying to calm him down. But now, with this further info from Leo today, I now have a niggling thing going on in my head about whether he really has an issue with his actual neck, or is it because of the cough? His food intake is down but he is drinking so perhaps this indicates little or no throat soreness?

Anyway, if we try to get our heads around it and try to be rational, then those awful irrational thoughts always force their way in.

So we hope to be able to speak with his oncologist on Monday as well as meeting with his school, who have been supportive since Thursday's incident. With luck, we will be able to also be put in touch with the hospital's children's psychology team who can advise us all on some strategies to deal with any further concerns, anxiety and anger which Leo may be have.