The good news is...

David has managed to restore some processing memory to my laptop so I can now get on with editing my Harris and Lewis photos.  Yay!  :-)

The bad news is Alan's not well :-(

Apparently he was a bit out of sorts when we were away last week but he's been slowly getting worse over the last few days.  Back to not wanting to go out and being generally very irritable, which is not like him and a definite sign all is not well.

Yesterday he wanted to go and lie on his bed early evening and wanted D to sit with him.  Something is definitely sore and we've asked him where the pain is but he's saying no to all our suggestions.  Usually he's very good at confirming what's bothering him when we ask.

This morning he was quite distressed.  Not all the time.  He would settle and even have a giggle to himself but then it was clear he was in pain, thrashing around and getting very hot.  We have wracked our brains trying to fathom what could be wrong (we're usually good at diagnosing the problem) but have drawn a blank.

Phoned the Health Centre and one of the GPs made a home visit.  Alan was quite distressed when he was here and I was glad as he was able to see the extreme reaction Alan was having to whatever is causing his pain.

He examined him thoroughly and was able to ascertain that his chest is clear, he doesn't have a temperature, his stomach felt fine, and he's not feeling or being sick.  He couldn't check his oxygen level as we couldn't get the oximeter to stay on Alan's finger.  I suspect the level was fine as he was breathing quite hard as he was so annoyed.

As a precaution he's prescribed a five day course of antibiotics and he's going to ring tomorrow to see how Alan is.  He's also a bit flummoxed as to what the problem might be.  He mentioned kidney stones but he's very young to have that.  A CT scan would be required for diagnostics and that's not easy with Alan as he would need to be knocked out to lie still enough.  If we don't get to the bottom of it in the next couple of days I think that's going to be our only option.

This afternoon D and I took turns to sit with him as he wanted to stay in bed.  Didn't want any tv or music.  Wanted me to sing to him, which settled him for a little while.  I noticed he's bitten his bottom lip really badly (a symptom rather than the cause of his distress) but it won't be helping as I imagine that's also painful. I wanted to get a bowl of lukewarm water and gently wipe his lips with some cotton wool, but he wouldn't let me.  He was so distressed at one point after he'd had two different painkillers, that we gave him the dose of diazepam he'd been due to have this afternoon for his dental appointment (which we'd had to cancel) and at last he relaxed enough and managed to get a sleep.

He's been more settled since but still getting bouts of pain.  We've ruled out the causes of constant nagging pain like toothache, as this is definitely a pain that subsides then strikes again.  The fact he can't identify what's sore makes us think it's something he's not had before.

So it's been a difficult day.  Singing to him with a massive lump in my throat whilst trying to hold back tears is not easy.  A few loo breaks have been required to release emotion and let me compose myself.  Alan wanted me to sing songs that his Gran Barton (my mum) used to sing to him.  I could have been doing with her here today. 

He's just has his next dose of painkiller ad seems more settled so hopefully he will get some sleep tonight.