November Sickness

November has been a health roller coaster around here.

The babe is still coughing up a storm...but the antibiotics have taken care of the ear infection and the drops have erased the eye infection. She was back at school today and it was a lovely thing.

The little guy has sadly come down with his sister's cough (thankfully not the eye infection). Night time has been the worst with frequent wakings and many trips into his room to check that he is OK. It's hard for him to sleep when he's in such discomfort and hacking up a storm, but there is only so much I can do. We've got the humidifier running, the soft sound of waves from the sound machine, frequent feedings which result in frequent diaper changes. The night rules I had been following have been adjusted to account for the little guy's illness.

I have to admit that it is pretty exhausting after having just made it through the babe's stomach virus and ear infection drama. The past few nights have been rough on baby, Mama and Papa. So rough that I fell back asleep after feeding the little guy at 7:00 am today. I then woke to the babe walking into our room and asking to climb into the bed. I looked over at the clock and realized it was 8:30 am. Woops. We're normally getting to the front door to leave at that time. So we all hustled and managed to get to school 25 minutes late. An extra hour of sleep was well worth it!

Fast forward to this afternoon. I had a mild panic attach and was considering bringing the little guy to the ER. He was coughing in a scary way, snot running down his face, irritable, very hot, and I discovered what looked to be mucus in his poopy diaper. After calling the pediatrician at 4:55 pm (they close at 5), I was faced with a choice. The receptionist recommended we head to the Children's Hospital to have him checked out. I called my husband, and we decided to call our health insurance provider's 24 hour help line (which has come in handy in the past). The nurse recommended we talk to our pediatrician in the next 8 hours and watch him closely.

We decided a trip to the ER at rush hour on a rainy Monday night wasn't in any of our best interests. After a dose of Tylenol and a few minutes of Little Einsteins, it was clear we had made the right decision. The little guy, although still ill, was sitting and doing his new arm shaking dance move to the overly familiar theme song. It's amazing how half an hour can change things.

I will stop my rambling as I need to shower and sleep before the night time sickness routine kicks in again. I know we are not the only house dealing with this, and I take a strange comfort in that. Watching your kids fight sickness is hard on a parent. We just have to remember that this too shall pass, right?