On Sick Children

I am writing this post after briefly getting caught up on another project, which I will write a mini blog post about immediately after I finish this one up. I missed a couple of posts and have to talk about one of the reasons I missed the first week's post. My daughter came down with a case of Croup and it was very scary, especially since it was my first run-in with this particular virus. All I know was that my daughter started making this horrible sound every time she cried. It was a bark like a seal and scared the hell out of me (and my wife too - I shouldn't leave her out this.)

As disturbing as it was, we did not panic. From everything we have heard and read (and by we, I mean my wife did the reading, and then shared the info with me) in various child development books we suspected that it might be Croup. My wife looked it up online and my daughter had all of the symptoms. The site even had audio clips of various coughs and we got to listen. I wonder if we could select a horrible cough Pandora channel. Technology is an amazing thing!

The Croup cough we listened to on the Internet sounded exactly like what my daughter had. We looked at how to proceed and it said that there was nothing the doctors could do, so we decided to hold off. The website told us what to look for if things were taking a turn for the worse. I know one should not play doctor with you children (and not with adults either, unless it is fun doctor!) but we were very comfortable with our decision. Well, comfortable may be the wrong word, as we ended up having her sleep with us that night and as a result got very little sleep ourselves.

We had done everything the computer said: taking her out in the cold air, and bringing her into a steamy bathroom. It all worked. The cough went away the next day and the next night we had her sleep in her own room. We brought her in to sleep with us for a little bit, but after she repeatedly kicked and punched my wife in the throat in her sleep, we brought her back to her own bed. She started getting better and the cough went away, and we thought she was getting better. Then, she started getting a nasty cold. It sounded like she had a bad chest cold and we started to get concerned.

We decided to take her to the doctor's office to see what the pediatrician thought. The doctor looked her over and said.... everything was fine. This was a normal case of Croup. The cough and the bad cold that followed, were all part of the illness. My daughter did have the start of an ear infection but other than that, she was fine. The doctor gave us a prescription of amoxicillin, just in case the infection got worse and that was that.

I don't know if anyone reading this was waiting for me to come out with something horrible, like she had tuberculosis, pneumonia or one of the million other horrible diseases/illnesses that a child can contract, but she didn't. This has to be one of the hardest parts of being a parent - dealing with a sick child. It's not just dealing with the illness that is the hard thing, but also the constant fear that something terrible is going to happen to your child, or their health.

This fear begins the moment you become a parent. It seems to be more prevalent with new parents, but after having three children with my first wife (though all three were adopted, only the last one being a baby when we got him), I can assure you it never truly goes away. I had a ritual that I always referred to as the Death Check, with my infants. I cannot tell you how many times I looked in on my daughter when she was sleeping and thought she was dead. Babies can be soooo still when they sleep. I would walk up to the crib and scrutinize her chest to see if it was moving or, on a few occasions, nudged her to make sure she was still alive. I would like to say you become more relaxed when you get to the next child but I don't feel there was any real change, except for maybe the frequency of the Death Checks. I wonder if I got up to the Duggar level of children if I would even bother checking. (Well, at that level I would just send one of the other kids to periodically poke the baby.)

Nothing makes you feel more powerless as a parent than when your child is sick, especially when they are still a baby or a young toddler. Really, any child that is unable to tell you what is wrong, is like parental kryptonite. You can see they are in pain or uncomfortable but they can't tell you the source of their discomfort. Without knowing what is wrong, it is hard to figure out how to treat them. But then again, there is not a lot of medicine a child under 2 can take. All you can do is give them some Tylenol, keep them comfortable and if they get a bad fever or you can't get them to stop crying, take them to the hospital. Well, another thing you can do is worry, and that you do aplenty.

Children also become very clingy when they don't feel good. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, but it is hard to get things done around the house when you are holding on to a toddler. It warms your heart to know that your child just wants their mom or dad to make them feel better when they don't feel good, but it is really a challenge. You better have a book or the remote handy, because you have that cute little person stuck to you like a barnacle on the hull of a ship. God forbid you should try to put them down. Their little eyes fill with tears and they cry/scream and hold those itsy bitsy hands up to you to pick them up. Some kids even get their little hands opening and closing to make you feel even worse about putting them down in the first place. Though it is necessary at times to put your child down. I have gone to the bathroom holding my child, but it is awkward.

For some reason, most sick children don't like to eat and drink. (I have a little trouble believing that I ever had trouble eating - sick or not - as a child.) This just adds to your worry because you know that your child must eat and drink. The food helps them get better and the drink is crucial, especially when they have a fever. Dehydration is a very big concern, as any doctor will tell you. So you end up giving your child anything that they will eat or drink. You dish out Jello, pudding, freeze pops, yogurt, and junk food of all variety - whatever they will eat or drink. Food that you probably would hesitate to give them when they were well, you will happily cram down their throat just to get them to eat something. The same thing goes with liquids: chocolate milk, any kind of juice, Gatorade, whatever. I have, out of necessity on several occasions, used a medicine shooter to get the baby to drink. As a parent you do what you have to do.

And speaking of medicine shooters, how about medicine?! Giving your child medicine is so much fun. They usually are sooooo willing to receive the pink goo (well actually some kids seem to tolerate it it better than others). I feel like I am some sort of torturer when it is time to give my daughter her medicine. We practically have to restrain her and shoot it in bursts so she doesn't use her tongue to push it out. My daughter has VUR, which to sum up in three words or less means that some of her urine goes the wrong way and back into her kidneys (okay, that was more than three words, but you get the point). She gets a daily preventative antibiotic which she has been receiving since she was first diagnosed (mere days after getting her home from the hospital). Every night, for her entire life she has been getting this medicine, and every night, without fail, it is a fight. I feel like she feels that the fight is part of the process because after she gets the first little bit in her mouth she seems fine. I'm not saying she loves the taste of it, but she doesn't resist after the first shot is in there. Well that was up until about a week ago. Now she has found that she can spit out the medicine and does it every night. Boy I hope she stops this soon. Editor's note: we had the pharmacist add cotton candy flavoring to the new bottle of medicine we picked up yesterday. As gross as cotton candy-flavored medicine sounds to me, our daughter is now taking her medicine without too much of a fight.

Of course I blame daycare for all of her sicknesses (just kidding, but, not really...) That may be a little unfair, but it is just one of those things. Neither my wife nor I want her to go to daycare, but seeming neither of us have super high-paying jobs, it is a necessity. Don't get me wrong, the people at the daycare are wonderful and we love them dearly, but let's face it, any place where children are grouped together is a giant germ factory. Kids are not good at covering their mouths when they cough or sneeze. They do not go around at school using anti-bacterial hand lotion and such. To be fair, most adults aren't that great at stopping the spread of germs either, and I am sure I have brought some home from work with me. But the people at work probably got the germs from their kids, who got them from school or daycare. So yes, it is all daycare/school's fault for all illness in the world.

No matter whose fault it is or the source of the germs, it is never any fun when a child is sick - not only for the child but for the parents too. There is little chance of keeping your child (or yourself) germ-free, unless of course, you want to have a bubble boy or girl or if you are lucky enough to give birth to the child with the never get sick mutation. So eventually every parent will have to deal with a sick child. As tempting as it would be to spike their bottle or cup with benadryl, you have to tough it out, just like the child. But if someone can come up with a portable bubble suit, like in the movie Bubble Boy (starring Jake Gylenhal) let me know how much you want for it. I might be willing to give it a shot. And as a bit of payback, when your children get older, make sure you get your kids to take care of you when you get sick. Really play it up to, so the kids will get a slice of what you went through when they were young. The circle of sickness!