Cub Scout Day Camp - Day 1

Today was the first day of Cub Scout Day Camp. Lance was so excited to be going. We were not even four hours before departure time and he was driving me crazy. “When do I leave?” By the two hour mark, I was hearing, “Can I get my t-shirt on yet?” Yes! Oh my goodness. By the one hour mark, “Can we fill up the CamelBak?” Like I said, he was driving me crazy.

Finally it was time to leave and go to where he was being dropped off for car pooling over to the camp location. His bucket was packed with the few “required” items and he was so excited. He was really excited because this year he got to use the big CamelBak. Of course that excitement soon dissipated just a little bit when he realized how much heavier it was to carry. “That is the difference 1 liter of water makes.” He shrugged it off and smiled. He was using the big CamelBak, he really did not care.

The final step before leaving is the sun screen and bug spray…

Putting on bug spray and sun screen is Lance’s favorite part. Doesn’t it show? His favorite most part is getting it on his face. It was very warm by noon today so he was already sweating by the time we got to his face so needless to say it was running. He is wiping the sweat and now sunscreen that was running out of his eyes. A quick rub with the shirt and we were good to go.

Of course wiping his hands off was another story, using his shirt evidently did not get rid of that sticky feeling from his hands. It is just yuck! He was upset because I made him pose for a picture quick instead of washing his hands. I am such a mean mom.

Lance was so excited to finally be getting in the car and leaving to go. Can’t you tell? In all fairness, it was bright and sunny and his face was crunched up. I then assaulted him with the sun screen. His enthusiasm quickly died so his face is pretty forced.

Here he is in the carpool ready to go. They were waiting for one more Cub Scout to show up. Now he looks a bit more excited. He is surrounded by Connor Black on his left and Porter Smith on his right. This group for carpool is only half of our Cub Scouts going to Day Camp.

Here are a couple of our fearless Den Leaders going to Cub Scout Day Camp – Tracy Jackson (left) and Katie Black (right). They are 2 of our 5 adult volunteers making it all happen for our 9 boys attending Day Camp this year. They look more than happy to go, don’t they? Katie made me promise that I would not put this picture up on FaceBook so I did not. I did not promise that I would not put it on my blog so here it is. These women do more for Cub Scouts than anyone else in the Scouting program and do not let anyone else tell you differently. Having been a Den Leader recently, it is often a thankless job but it is one that is full of love. It is a job that comes with lots of love and energy for those boys and these women try their hardest to keep up with our Pack with its limited resources. So the next time you see your Den Leader, give them a hug or shake their hand and say, “Thank you.”

The weather was interesting for camp. It was not too bad in the morning, but these screenshots of the Weather App were taken about 10 minutes before Day Camp should have been starting. The camp location is not very far from here, about 10 miles. You will notice that it was raining. Yes, they started Day Camp off with rain. It was raining pretty hard at the house about an hour into the whole Day Camp experience. Fortunately, the particular camp alternates every other hour indoors and outdoors (give or take) so only about 50% of the boys would have been outdoors anyway, but that was still 50% of the boys’ activities being rained on. Of course, there is rain in the forecast through Saturday. Day Camp ends on Friday. You will also notice that while the temperature was only 84˚F at the time, it felt like 95˚F. It was a bit on the warm side. I have to say that compared to last year where we were battling with 100-110˚F and no rain with heat indexes much higher than that, this is mighty comfortable. We are just truly starting to warm up here this year, however. We are well into June and we have not see very high temperatures yet so this “feels like 95˚F” is a bit warm still, especially since it is rainy and humid. Once the rain stops, it is only going to feel worse.

Today Lance built a little glider for one of their projects. His is colorful. He declared that they glued them together so that they would not come apart.

Look at how excited he looks to show off that glider! He is wearing his all cleaned up and showered, wearing his Cub Camp t-shirt from last year.

Showing off his coloring job.

I was a bad mom. I turned on the flash instead of the overhead lights trying to get a better picture. Right in Lance’s face. I was not thinking.

I laid him out on the floor with the instant surge of pain in his head. I swear it was a little on the overly dramatic side, but he literally doubled over in pain and fell over. He was NOT impressed! I felt bad, but at least I could document the moment, right? And look, he still has that glider in his hand. No harm done to it.

He got a migraine at camp today. I feared that he would. Of course I also knew that they would not identify it correctly and it would take me going up to the camp to treat it myself. It is kind of frustrating.

I received a text from his Den Leader, Tracy Jackson, that he had thrown up. That he had gone to the Scout Hut. I started asking questions about how he was feeling and where he was. Of course not everything clicked right away with the answers I got. Everything was happening so quickly. I put my shoes on and was out the door to get to the camp location to see him.

I honestly did not think that he was sick. Even throwing up in the heat, I did not think that he was sick. I had asked if he head a headache and the text response was “no.” I was relieved as that meant we could get to it very quickly. I just needed to get there and make sure that was what it was. Sure enough I felt his head and he was not hot. He was clammy. His hands were cold. I took one look in his eyes and his pupils were dilated and almost as big as his irises. There was only a sliver of color left. They did not contract when he blinked.

He was not complaining about visual disturbances per say, but I asked what he was doing when it happened. In the meantime, I sent the First Aid lady to get the 2 Advil they were instructed to give him per my note. Of course, he did not have the head pain so they did not. He explained that they were doing the Whittling Chip stuff and when they pulled out the knives he just got scared and got sick. I already knew where he was, I just wanted to hear his version of the story. That did not make any sense to me. Knives should not be scary to a boy that is allowed to use weapons. There had to be more to the story. That was not what clicked for me at the time. I did not push for more about that right then.

Had he been drinking? Dehydration can cause headaches faster than anything else. He assured me that he had been drinking enough. I am sure that 3-6L of fluid was plenty for that time period especially with the heat.

The reality for me was standing there in the Scout Hut with the “supposed nurse” and I had to explain to her that he was not sick. I had to explain to her that this was a migraine and he needed the pain killers 10 minutes ago. He needed them when he came in. She looked at me with the “deer in the headlight” looks all glazed over.

I suddenly had this concept floating around in my head:

[Source: unknown]

She was standing there looking at me. I assume she knew something about something or she would not have been the First Aid person on call. Of course I should not assume anything. She should have been able to at least understand me when I tell her that he has a migraine. When I asked if he was given the Advil when he came in the response was, “Well no, he did not have a headache.” He did not have one at that moment either. I proceeded to tell her that the number one sign of migraines in children is vomiting with or without head pain.

Did you check his temperature? “No, would you like me to?” Yes! A quick check of his temperature will verify that he is in fact not too sick to return to the group, hello?!. I did not say that, but I was certainly thinking it. Of course his temperature was less than 98˚F. His forehead was cool to the touch and he was clammy.

She was still not getting it. How can you have a “migraine” without head pain? Was the whole look I was getting. It was that stupid, I am confused but I am not going to say anything look. I grabbed a hold of the top of his head and I said, “Look. Look at his eyes. This is how I know this is a migraine and there is something going on. Do you see how dilated his pupils are? Do you see how they do not contract?” The look on her face was priceless. It was a cross between shock and and sheer surprise. I do not think she had seen anything like that before. I had not either until it started. I did not know what it was at first. I had to figure out what it went to.

Finally, I got the 2 Advil that I had checked into the nurse with a specific note to treat him for headache. Grrrr! Naturally, the headache pain started about 2 minutes after he took the Advil. If we had not spent 5 minutes discussing how he must be sick because he threw up and how he did not have head pain, we could have spared him those 5 minutes.

Fortunately, he did not get the headache until the very end of the day.

This is what I wrote about it on Facebook:

Migraines suck even worse when you watch your 9 year old son suffer with one. Figuring out the triggers are always loads of fun. Today, the “flashing lights” got the better of him. You never would have guessed that the sun flashing off the pond would set him off, but it set him off. Made him sick enough that he threw up at Cub Scout Day Camp today. I have decided that trying to explain childhood migraines to others is sometimes even less fun than the headache itself.

Since June is Migraine and Headache Awareness Month, children do not always manifest with head pain first when they get a migraine. This is part of the reason it is so hard to diagnose them with migraines in the first place. Their symptoms are often common childhood illnesses. For many children their most common symptom is stomach pain and/or vomiting. The head pain may come as an “after thought” so to speak, if at all. It is important to know that not all migraines manifest with pain for adults either.

For Lance, we are still learning what all of his “pre-pain” symptoms are but I have learned that he suffers from seemingly random vomiting, he will ask “Is it hot in here or is it just me?,” he gets cold and clammy to the touch but his head may be sweaty, and his pupils get ginormous. Unfortunately, Lance has not learned to distinguish all these symptoms in his day to day activities yet so we have to rely on others to recognize that “something is off” with him. With a migraine preventative now, if we get to the migraine fast enough it does respond very quickly to hydration, ice, and over the counter pain medications. That is the good news.

The bad news is that he has to learn to live with it the rest of his life. Those of us that already live with it know that it is not fun and it is disheartening to know what he faces.

It was after talking to him that I learned about what the trigger was. It was not anyone’s fault. It was just something that happened. I was just upset with the nurse because of her lack of sensitivity and understanding. I would not have thought about the ripples on the pond with the sun flashes being a problem. If I had been sitting there with him, I probably would have recognized it and acted and the problem could have been averted. The key is that I was not there. Lance did not recognize it. No one else knew and there was a trigger lurking there.

Since I figured it out from the story he was telling me after we got home and he was talking about his day and I caught him with the camera flash, I put two and two together. I was able to tell the Den Leader to just turn him around and put his back to the water tomorrow. He will be fine. It was not the knives that were scary. He had this “scared” feeling come over him because that was a “pre-pain” symptom he got. It was a feeling of general un-well-ness and he associated that with fear because he did not know what it was. It came on so fast and hit him so hard. It came as fast as the nausea and ultimately the vomiting. It probably was scary to him. He just associated it with the event that happened right then – them pulling out the knives – because that was tangible to him.

The good news is that with a Coke on the way home and the Advil already in his system, he is fine tonight. Even my camera flash incident was only brief incident of pain. Once the eye disturbance of the flash subsided his pain subsided. He lectured me on the use of the flash and we moved on.

Tomorrow we will try again and hopefully he will have a better day.

Cub Scout Day Camp – Day 1

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