Category Archives: sickies

blaming the mucous

Posted on by

A pox, er, a cold has descended upon our circus and I am blaming the mucous! Holly suggests that I blame Hazel since the poor girl came down with a cold just days after Fallon was born and shared it with her parents but I find it so much more easy to blame the mucous…because the snot is flowing around here.

So before I get sick it gets really bad around here I’m stocking up on some necessities.

One of the drawbacks of a large family is when stocking up on cold remedies the local pharmacist is suspicious that you might be running a meth lab. Don’t be surprised if you find that your ID has been flagged…just saying. I’m thinking mine is still flagged from last colds and flu season. Gawd almighty, I hope that this season won’t be nearly as bad for us. But if it is…yup, I’m totally blaming the mucous.

it’s how you know

Posted on by

Oh sure the unit where you work is now closed to slimy, snot-nosed, RSV-carrying, darling creatures siblings visits in order to protect the most vulnerable of your tiny patients from simple bugs to you and me that could literally kill them. Yes, you got your annual flu shot to protect yourself, your family and your patients. But how do you REALLY know that it is truly colds and flu season?

You know when your daughter messages you on Facebook late at night when your cellphone is turned off for the night because she needs some advice about what she must do to help her child who sounds like a barking seal. Make note that if your daughter is 34+ weeks pregnant and posts such a message on your Facebook wall the extended family will FREAK OUT because, OMG your daughter is 34+ weeks pregnant and in the late, late hours of night such a wall posting must mean something is going on with the baby.

So you turn your cellphone on. You call your daughter. You reassure her and tell her what to do with a feverish, croupy child because you have done your fair share of time in the cool night air and the steamy bathroom in the late night hours with a few members of your own circus act. You also post a response on your Facebook wall so everyone knows it is NOT time for the Coming Attraction 2.0 to arrive. It’s just a sick baby girl and colds and flu season is beginning.

But how do you REALLY know?

You know when your sweet grand daughter tells you in her whiskey and cigarettes voice that not only does she have a frog in her throat but also a TURTLE! Can you imagine? This poor child not only has an amphibian in her throat but she also has a REPTILE! She must be sick!

Of course when she sits next to you on the sofa all snuggled with her favorite baby blankie and her binkie looking so pale and sickly you KNOW she really is sick and it really is colds and flu season. The fact that she keeps on sliming you with her green snot  when she kisses you helps to remind you too.

At least she is sick BEFORE her baby sister is born. Hopefully her mommy and daddy…and Mi-ma and the rest of the family circus won’t be getting sick soon because, yes, her baby sister will be coming sometime VERY soon!

Wordful Wednesday is like Wordless Wednesday, only WITH words. It’s for those of us that can’t contain the chatter, but in a good way. Have something to be Wordful About this Wednesday?  Head on over to Seven Clown Circus and Parenting by Dummies to link up and share.

play it again: in just 24 hours

Posted on by

originally posted November 11, 2010

Not last night but the night before…

I love, LOVE spending one on one time with my son. I mean we have the most amazing, funny, thought-provoking conversations when we do so I love to spend time with him. But in an ER? I thought we were done with this?

Apparently not.

I have said that it has been a very long time since he was sick. It has been. I settled quickly in my mommy-nurse mode because that is what I do. Still, I was so worried, so stressed, so scared. Because that is what all of us mommies do.  And then I dug out my old pediatric nursing text and started Googling my son’s symptoms… OMG! Croup versus Epiglottitis…and, well, we ended up taking a midnight ride to the local ER.

Fun times.

I started feeling perhaps I jumped the gun a little. But the D.O. did find his ariway to be quite swollen so he gave him a racemic epi treatment, a dose of decadron and something for pain which all worked just fine because he did fall into an exhausted, wheezy sleep. I love how he was surrounded by his NICU lovies (he dug them out of their keepsake box) and Curious George. Seeing the friends who have been with him through his NICU days and frequent re-hospitalizations somehow made it seem like he was surrounded with all the luck, love and prayers that sustained him back in those days. It was all going to be okay, they seemed to reassure me.

And just twenty-four hours later there he was last night, all curled up sleeping so much more peacefully, softly snoring with just occasional coughs and wheezes, in his own bed.

Mom’s breathing easier too.

Thank you.

possibly good

Posted on by

I’m not running tomorrow.

I know I have been whining about it pretty much all week. Still some have missed all my feverish bitching and moaning and coughing up of gallons of phlegm and have expressed genuine surprise that I won’t be running the Modesto Half tomorrow. Yes, I am benched by my good doctor who just so happened to see me at the race packet pickup and expo today. Just my luck to bump into him while he was picking up his race packet.

What can I say? I wanted that duffel bag. I need that duffel bag. I paid for that duffel bag and maroon (eewww!) tech shirt so I was determined that I would get them along with the race bib that I won’t be wearing tomorrow. I swore to my doc that all I wanted was that damn bag and I was going back home to bed as ordered.

I still have a fever…100.2° is way better than 102.5°…and I am feeling a little bit better. At least I can stand for about a half hour without feeling like I will pass out. Moving forward. It’s all about moving forward. But I still can’t help but be disappointed that I’m not running tomorrow as quite a number of my friends will be…at the Modesto Marathon, the LA Marathon, the NYC Half Marathon and the Georgia Half Marathon.

But then I look at the weather report: gale force winds, torrential rains…um, perhaps it is good that I have been benched.

It is quite possibly a very good thing that I won’t be running tomorrow. Instead I will be curled up in my new cozy sweats from Running Divas resting, sipping my hot Green Tea Lemonade and likely coughing up even more phlegm. Doctor’s orders…er, the resting part.

Good luck all my dear running buddies, near and far. I will be thinking of you all and anxiously waiting to hear your results.

it’s the circle of life

Posted on by

Most parents, especially parents of children who regularly hang out in the germ-filled petri dishes that are schools will tell you kids get sick. They get sick even more so these days what with cash-strapped schools penalizing parents for not sending their kids to school, sick or not. They get sick all the time. They bring home their slimy sickness and spread it everywhere in the hearth and home and all over you. The darling, sick children seem to become all the more helpless when they are sick too. It’s crazy how they still need you to feed them and hug them plus demand that you soothe them, comfort them, medicate them and sometimes, take them to their pediatricians. You desperately want to keep them at arm’s length and prevent them from breathing on you or, worse, sliming you with their icky, ooey, gooey germs. But you are their parent. You are the person they look to with those big, sad, tear-filled eyes imploring you to somehow make them all better.

SIGH!

So you do. You hold them in your arms. You wipe their feverish brows. You hold their hair out of the way while they puke their guts out. That’s what the good parents do…right? At least that is what you believe so you do and do and do to the point of exhaustion all to make your precious children all better. You do it because it is expected. You do it because you want to. You do it because you just can not bear for your precious children to be sick…not ever.

But the reality is that children get sick. They get sick a lot. At least it seems that they sick often. Heck one time is often enough.

And it follows that when children get sick, the people who care for them will very likely get sick.

Their parents get sick.

Thanks kids! Luv ya!

It’s okay. It happens. Kids get sick. They get sick a lot. They pass around their germs and spread them everywhere especially with their family, with their mom and dad.

It happens.

It’s the circle…the circle of life.

This blog post was written completely under the influence of heavy duty medications because while my sick kids are getting better (WIN!), I am now sick.