Near Death Experience

Dear Mr. Philips,
The boy was not at school yesterday as he was suffering from a variety of ailments and quite frankly, from the symptoms he described to us, we are lucky he is still alive. What started as a simple stomach ache upon waking had, by breakfast, quickly evolved into a rare form of malaria. Imagine our horror.

We understand you are studying diseases in class and thankfully, our son was able to recognize the symptoms and relate them to us. Apparently, this is not the kind of malaria transmitted by mosquitoes, but a more peculiar form that he thinks he picked up from the drinking fountain or maybe from tainted vegetables. We have to commend our son on his bravery throughout this ordeal though. He was eager to get to school but warned us he would be endangering the lives of others as it is apparently a highly contagious disease, so we were forced to keep him home.

He did mention that his science project was due yesterday and he feared he would be unable to work on it due to the painful hand cramps he was suffering. Our son thought this was most likely a type of rapid onset polio. He was unable to grip small objects like a pen or pencil, but strangely enough he could still hang on to larger items such as the T.V. remote and video game controls.

His mother informed him if he had come down with malaria and some sort of crippling polio that he would have to spend the day in bed reading and not in front of the T.V.

Unfortunately at this moment, he nearly lost sight in both eyes, which he attributes to a possible case of 24 hour glaucoma. Can you believe it? Stricken nearly blind on top of the malaria and polio?

We were also most concerned about the severe nausea that was preventing him from eating. His mother suggested he could combat his ailments with fruits and vegetables, but he felt he would be unable to keep anything down except perhaps pancakes and maple syrup. To make matters worse, the poor little guy was too sick to walk at this point and declared he would need to be served in bed. Mother was quite worried and said it would be best if he ate nothing at all lest he should throw up in bed. Imagine our relief when he declared the nausea gone after managing a brutal fast of nearly thirty minutes.

The boy was placed in quarantine in his bedroom until lunch when, thankfully his vision miraculously returned. At this point, the cramps also disappeared and he was able to work on his science project for the remainder of the day. He seems right as rain today, but if any symptoms of malaria, polio or glaucoma appear, please feel free to give us a call. In the future, it may be wise to warn us when large projects are due so that we can avoid another near death experience.