It would seem that L. and I are trying to set a world record. We’re seeing if we can be the mother-son team that is sick for the most days in September. I don’t know who else is competing, but I’m pretty sure we’re winning. By my calculations, we’ve been healthy a grand total of 4.5 days this month, and have spent the rest of September sneezing, coughing, feverish, coughing more, on medication, coughing, wiping runny noses…oh, and did I mention the coughing? ‘Cause there’s been some.
The current germ has been hanging around for almost two weeks and his fever zipped up to 102 on Wednesday, so yesterday, I was the dutiful mother and took L. to the pediatrician. My husband has suspected that L. and I are both afflicted with either bronchitis or pneumonia, but I was happy to tell him that L. is officially lung-disease-free. He’s also ear-infection-free. Which means he has a mystery illness. In the doctor’s words, “Could this be one virus on top of another? Yes. Could this be a type of ‘bacterial overlay’? Yes. Could this just be a nagging virus that he might be able to fight off? Yes. We just don’t know.”
And so apparently, when “we just don’t know,” and when a disease lingers for a little too long, we prescribe antibiotics.
A prescription for antibiotics might make some moms happy — after all, if there is a sneaky little bacteria in there, the antibiotics will take care of it. As for me, however…as soon as she mentioned “antibiotic,” a sense of dread overcame me.
You see, L. is not exactly an eager medicine-taker. He spits, he squirms, he hits, he yells, and when all else fails, he throws up. Granted, it’s been a while since his last bacterial infection, but during that particular escapade with amoxicillin, he threw up numerous times (pink stains are lovely), he animatedly resisted all attempts to jam shove insert the liquid-laden syringe into his mouth, and he generally made his displeasure well-known. In the end, he had to go into the pediatrician’s office for an antibiotic shot in the leg. Lots of fun.
This was not an isolated case; I could list numerous medicines that have gone into his little body, and then were promptly ejected.
So a prescription did not exactly fill me with joy.
This pediatrician, however, was more than willing to listen to my woes, my concerns, the fact that I didn’t want to be puked on again. And she looked through her database o’ drugs to see which one might fit our situation. In the end, she prescribed one that only has to be taken once per day, and one whose dose is only one-third that of the amoxicillin.
So far, I’ve been able to trick force convince L. to take two doses, with just a wee bit of bribery. With no puking. It’s a beautiful thing. Of course, this antibiotic has turned his poop brick-red, but we won’t discuss that right now. (Oh, he’s just going to love me when he gets older and sees how I’ve blogged about his poop.)
In the meantime, C. is a little jealous that L. “gets to have” antibiotics. Yes, my older boy is just the opposite of L., and always loved getting the pink medicine, or the white medicine, or whatever color medicine he had to take.
I’m hoping that L. and I have a healthier October, and that we don’t make C. jealous by getting to take more yummy medicine.
Yeah–Kyle always wants more medicine too. Of course that results in tantrums too.
Sorry you’re still sick. The nagging coughs are the worst.
The one virus on top of another is always what House M.D. is trying to uncover. See, the producers of the show could read about his case and it could show up on television!
I always hated this time of year when I was in school. All the students would come back from all walks of life and get me sick. It was a delightful way to start off the school season. Now, I seem to do pretty well, but my sister has no immune system at all and she will come visit and I am starting to think she needs to come with one of those surgical masks. She catches everything! So whenever I am sick, I just blame it on her. When I was L.’s age, though, I started my ear and throat infection stage that I had until my preteen years. I had my share of pink medicine.
My daughter had the mystery fever-virus-infection thing, too. It took her about ten days and antibiotics to finally kick it. It would be so much easier on my emotional well-being if we just knew what was really wrong!
Oh this post reminds me of the great purple puking episode of 2001. My son still talks about it whenever my hand even strays near a bottle of purple liquid when I’m picking up cold medicine. It was ugly, very very ugly.
C. has stronger stuff than I do if he like that white medicine. It always made me heave. :-/ Give me the grape decongestant! Now there’s the good stuff.
Hope both you and L. are feeling much better soon!
I hope that you both get to feeling better soon
~Tamara
http://www.TrainingHearts.com
Yeah… I feel your pain, LITERALLY. A & I have been trying to get some congestion out of our chest for almost a week now. G has a little rattle in her chest, for about that same time.
I pray that you two will get better soon.
–Garr
They really ought to name this mystery virus…it’s EVERYWHERE so it’s obviously SOMETHING…LOL!! Good luck with the medicine…
Katrina, Sure hope you two get to see the outdoors in Oct. I know you missed a lot of Sept. After you dispose of this(these) virus(s) you’ll never get them again. There has to be a bright spot somewhere. Praying for you two, Love, Mom
I hate using antibiotics, but if we have to do it, then I prefer to just get them the shot because not only do I not have to remember to use it and fight them to take it and keep it down, but there is no copay on it! Thats right, our insurance completely covers it at the dr.’s office!
What you could do, is have the doctor do a blood test, which should reveal if it is viral or bacterial so you are not using antibiotics on a virus.
Hope you are both feeling better soon.
Hope you both feel better soon!!!!
I was late commenting on this post as I was away from the lovely distractive internet fighting my own virulent strain of a cold combined with allergies. I hope your family stays all healthy like for October and even longer
-Tim
Buffalo GameBuffs blog