enough with the panic
so boo has had herself a hefty cough for about a week. it’s tough and keeps her up at night. after about four days of 2 hour bedtime routines and her sneaking in our bed several times a night, i called her doctor. basically, the nurse told me that you can’t, CANNOT give any cold medicine to a 2 year old.
with all the bullshit floating around about recalled meds and overdosing i bowed to the nurse line and basically resigned myself to let the illness run its course knowing, KNOWING deep down it was the wrong thing to do. i wanted to grab my car keys and head to Walgreen’s (or as my Aunt Dot would call it Wallgrins) and read every label of every cough syrup made for kids until i found one suitable to give my daughter. but no, against my instincts, i did nothing. why? because i don’t want a lot of additives and preservatives in my child. nine times out of ten anything you give your kid is only designed to take your money and make you feel better. it does nothing to alleviate your child’s symptoms.
but my god, that cough! it wakes her up. she wakes us up. and in the end we are all miserable. but still, i buy the hype.
yesterday, knowing she wasn’t 100% (but with no runny nose or fever) i took her to daycare. they called around 4PM for me to come get her - they said her temp was 101.4. i vow to take her to minute clinic and get her something ANYTHING to help her feel better. her cough was so bad though that the good people at minute clinic kicked us out. with no lab and no x-ray, they felt she would be better off being treated at urgent care. then they gave me my money back. but the medical person there (who isn’t a doctor) told me that she might need a chest x-ray, that it might be pneumonia. or it could be RSV.
WHAT???!!!
how the fuck could my daughter have pneumonia? it doesn’t make sense. oh wait…her daycare told me it had been going around. they tell me this as i pick her up - that pneumonia and croup and pink-eye are all going around. now i get that kids are filthy little monsters, but shouldn’t daycare tell you if kids have been hospitalized because of the flu? i think so. hell yes i think so.
the good doctor (yes a real doctor) at urgent care confirms an ear infection. boo complained the other night that her ear hurt, but that’s the first we’d heard about that. and he’ll give her antibiotics to treat the ear infection. what about her lungs, i ask. what about her chest congestion and cough. well, he says, we could do a chest x-ray, but with the antibiotic, if it is pneumonia - the antibiotic will clear that up too.
so i don’t know if she has pneumonia or not. either way, her illness is being treated. and i’m thankful for that. but i can’t help thinking that if i had given her some robitussen a week ago, would this have happened?
if i had given her a little bit of cold medicine, keeping my eye on the dosage and watching her reaction, could that little bit have saved her from a ten day load of antibiotics? what’s better and what’s worse? i don’t want her taking antibiotics every time she gets sick because society says you can’t give kids cold medicine. i don’t want to wait a week and let things get so bad and so out of hand that hubbin and i practically sleepwalking and she’s hanging by a thread.
but i know i should trust my instincts, no matter if they go against what the nurse line or society tells me. my daughter means the world to me, why should i trust what other people (other than her father) tell me how i should care for her? that’s crazy!
still, i feel like i failed. i feel like i didn’t do what i knew to be best for her. that kills me. never again. i don’t care. i know i know what’s best for her.