Her first real cold. AKA My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?

Note - this one was actually written a couple of weeks ago and I forgot to post it... So yes, the muchkin is just fine now!

Last week I started to notice the munchkin had a bit of a sniffle. OK, not a big deal. She’s had the sniffles before. Of course, the last time was when my husband had the swine flu, so I took her to the doctor anyway, and the doctor looked at me like I was totally crazy because she really wasn’t sick at all (but everyone else on the planet was in the middle of flu hysteria!).

This time, though, she was starting to really actually get sick. From a bit stuffy on Saturday to full on coughing and snotting all over on Sunday. Now, as we’ve just moved, we’ve just switched doctors for her. We’re actually still with the same overall practice, but have switched the office we go to. Actually, maybe that’s not exactly true. This place seems more like a chain that’s franchised out offices in both places – like they’re not that closely related, as it turns out… We’d chosen the first office because they had really great hours – open till 8 most nights, Saturday morning hours and Sunday morning emergency hours (i.e., they are open every Sunday morning, but won’t do regularly scheduled appointments then). We figured this decision was paying off when we called at 9 on Sunday. Except the new office does not actually have Sunday hours. Ugh. Well, we thought about it and we haven’t actually gone to the new office yet (her next appt will be there), so why not just call the old office?

My husband called and spoke to the nurse there. Once she realized we had switched offices, she attempted to blow him off as fast as she could and suggested we didn’t need to come in. This annoyed him. He cut her off to say – why don’t you let me finish telling you the symptoms before you tell me she doesn’t need to come in? So he did. And having some medical training, he sounded all professional when he explained it – I listened to her chest yesterday and it was clear, but this morning her congestion seems to have moved into the lungs, though she is still afebrile (doesn’t have a fever). His concern was that these types of things can progress really rapidly in babies (and it seemed to have moved so quickly from yesterday), that he wanted to catch it fast. Anyway, I can’t remember all the terms he used (I would never get away with this), but he pulled it off and the nurse asked, ‘Can you hold please, Doctor?’ Now while he never actually said he as a doctor, he didn’t disabuse her of this notion. Instead he said, I think she’s probably fine, but I’d really like to have her checked out as I generally see adults, not children (note – this is an entirely true statement. It’s just that he sees them as a paramedic, not as a doctor.). And, in the spirit of “professional courtesy,” they fit her in.

We arrived at the office and Dr. Dad continued to use proper medical terminology as he explained what was going on to the nurse checking us in. She looked at him and said – ‘oh, are you a doctor?’ Now, he obviously wasn’t going to lie outright (and hey, we were already there anyway!), so instead he said –”No, but I play one on TV."

Yes, we are THAT old that we’re quoting that ancient commercial! But it was always one of my favorites – I mean, how ridiculous? I’m not a doctor. Actually, I’m an actor on a popular soap opera. But let me give you medical advice.) Anyway, apparently our nurse was not old enough to catch the reference, so she instead said – really? You do? Oh gosh… (OK, if you haven’t seen that commercial, I can see how you would probably take that statement at face value and assume he was serious, but it was pretty funny to us.) He explained, no, not really. And then reiterated, but I deal with adults, not children. (So again – the impression that maybe he is a doctor is still sort of there, but he’s never said he is.)

Anyway, the doctor finally came in (I wonder if he would have gotten our reference!) and checked the munchkin out. It turned out that luckily the congestion hadn’t moved to the lungs – what we were hearing in her lungs was actually an echo of the congestion in her head/throat (but her body is so little, it sounds like it might be in the lungs). He said – the good and bad news is – it’s a head cold. She’ll be a little miserable and very snotty and coughing for awhile, but she should be just fine. And if she’s not fine in a few days, bring her back.

And that was that. Thank goodness! The baby will be fine, but we are truly ancient and decrepit parents who make bad 80’s commercial references. It’ll be just a few years before the munchkin is driving us to our gerontologists and reminding us to put in our teeth first.

I know this is only the beginning. Once my child gets older the moments where I feel 104 will only increase, but I guess I should be prepared. Tell me your stories of those first times your kids made you realize you weren’t a kid anymore and made you feel a bit outdated. (If it’s happening already, I’m sure her teenage years are going to be a real blast!)

Nasal aspirators, snot suckers and brain eaters

As I mentioned the other day, there’s been a cold (and/or the flu) going around our house recently. My husband and mother in law were hit worst. I was just feeling a little under the weather / tired, but no big deal and the baby had the sniffles. But you know what baby sniffles mean? They mean someone has to get that gunk out of her nose because she can’t do it herself – and so we introduce the nasal aspirator, or as we call it, the snot sucker. She loves it! Just loves it. Who wouldn’t love having some plastic jammed up their nostril to suck gunk out? Clearly the screaming and head thrashing and hands up mean that she LOVES it – right? That’s a true sign of baby love.

It occurred to me that it’s not much fun and maybe it hurts or is uncomfortable, so I asked my husband if he’d ever tried it on himself. He looked at me like I was nuts and said, no, why would I do that? Now before you think I’m totally nuts too, not only is he a man who tried all the baby food (and breast milk!) to see what it tasted like (as did I – except the bananas because I hate bananas!), but he's also a paramedic – so he has to do this to people a lot. And heck – maybe they had to practice it on each other in clinicals or something? What do I know? I know they all had to start IVs on each other (reason number 8000 why I will never be a paramedic. I don’t do well with that when the really skilled practitioners do it. Like I want a rookie!), so it’s not totally unreasonable. But he said no, he hadn’t. So I decided to try it on myself (yes I cleaned it before and after!) and I’ll tell you what – nothing. It felt like NOTHING! I tried shoving it really far up my nostril figuring her nostril is lot smaller than mine, so that would be more comparable. And I did it with the big, hospital issued one, rather than the nice cute little CVS one we got more recently. Now, it’s arguable that it feels different for her. She’s smaller and all that. But sometimes she sits for the little purple CVS one like it’s no big deal (which it is!) and she doesn’t even notice. So I really don’t think it hurts her or causes discomfort.

Which leads me to believe she must think we’re attempting to suck out her brain with it. Sure she’s 9 months old. So she doesn’t know what a brain is. Or more to the point – she doesn’t know where her brain is to know that this would be the right access point. But otherwise I’m at a loss.

A plague on our house

Be it the flu or swine flu or maybe the black death – a plague has befallen our house! Or, well, yes, still my in-laws house as we are STILL living there. My Mother in law got sick about a week ago with cold symptoms. She was very nervous about getting the baby sick and therefore completely quarantined herself to her room for several days. We changed up our work schedules for childcare and it all seemed OK. Until my husband came home with a cold on Friday morning. He’d worked 24 with his fever spiking at 102.5 in the middle. He’s not one to go to the doctor or admit illness readily, so either he was really worried about infecting the baby or he was really really sick. His flu test came back negative, but, as the test apparently has a high false negative, the doctor diagnosed flu based on his symptoms. (I later learned that all flu currently diagnosed is assumed to be swine flu because we’re not seeing seasonal flu yet and apparently the test isn’t sensitive enough to distinguish.) As the munchkin had been a bit stuffy for a couple of days, we decided she needed a trip to the pediatrician – just to be safe.

Our normal practice on taking her to the doctor is that one of us sits in the car with her while the other waits in the waiting room. When we’re called, we all come in. That way she doesn’t sit in the petrie dish that is a pediatrician’s waiting room. I know this may sound overly paranoid, but our daughter was born in February – smack dab in flu season. I’d had the flu the year before and wound up with quite a bad case (throat so sore the doctor prescribed vicadin for the pain (OK, so even I thought that was extreme), no voice for almost a week, throwing up, IV liquids – all that fun). We didn’t want to risk exposing our 4 day old at her first doctor visit, so the doctor actually suggested this procedure. As it worked and seemed like a good idea, we’ve stuck with it. Anyway, as my husband was sick, he couldn’t come along, so my mother in law took car duty instead and therefore came in to the appointment.

The doctor took one look at my laughing, squealing daughter and looked at me like – lady, you are completely crazy to bring this obviously perfectly healthy child in for fear that she has the flu. I explained that I didn’t really think she had the flu, but she did have cold symptoms and had definitely been exposed to the flu (which is, of course, very dangerous for someone her age). I know, I know! I’m a paranoid first time Mom! But still! Anyway, I was very glad to hear that she just had a mild upper respiratory infection and it was no big deal.

So now we just wait for the rest of the house to recover. My mother in law is beyond any contagion stage (apparently her doctor said that she had the flu, but not the swine flu), so she’s watching the little monkey while I work, but still trying to get extra rest when I’m home. My husband is mostly feeling better (mostly), but still not allowed near her. So he’s been sheepishly observing what he’s referred to as my ‘single parenting’ the last few days as he avoids coming near the baby. And, I have to admit – it’s been exhausting. Even when he does a shift of 24, I’m often left to wonder – how do single parents do it? There are so many things going on at once! Those moments when the baby is dirty and hungry and needs me, but the dog also needs to go out and I’d really like to make it to the bathroom and maybe have some breakfast myself – but I’m trying to pump before I get the baby so we have enough supply! There enough to drive you over the edge – and make me very grateful that that is not my every day.