Sick baby, again

It must be lousy to be a sick baby.

It's no picnic, being the sick mother of a sick baby, either, but at least I have control over my ownself. A sick baby, on the other hand, can't paw through the medicine cabinet for some cough drops or blow his nose to get some of that gunk out of his head. He can't change himself out of his sweat-soaked pajamas when his fever breaks, or demand a popsicle to assuage the ache in his throat.

William (and David and I) came down with some kind of cold while we were in Nashville. He wasn't acting overly fussy or anything, but he was coughing heavily, and he was wheezing a bit. But he didn't have a fever and wasn't acting listless or anything too alarming. I wasn't too worried, figuring he had the Typical Winter Cold, but David's pediatrician brain began to go into overdrive. Could be bronchiolitis, could be RSV, could even be the beginning of asthma!

This is what happens when your daddy's a doctor: your symptoms either get ignored with a casual flap of the hand, or else you get hauled into the doctor's office for a battery of tests. Guess which one William was subjected to today.

Poor little guy had to be held down while a doctor pumped saline drops into his nose and then suctioned the mucus out with a bulb syringe. In the understatement of the week, possibly the month, that proved to be very...shall we say, unpopular with young Master Wyckoff. Unpopular, unacceptable, uninvited, downright AWFUL OHMYGODWHYAREYOUDOINGTHISTOME STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP AAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGHHHHHHHHH!


I really sincerely hope that he does not have RSV. If that's what the test is like, I hate to think of the treatments. Dr. Perkins fretted that he'd never want to see her again, since he might associate her with that little procedure. But he's usually pretty forgiving.

To add insult to injury, the nurse had to hold William down again so that he could administer some Albuterol through an inhaler to him. David was worried about the possibility of asthma, given the wheezing, which is why he asked for William to receive some of that medicine. I held William in my lap and tried to hold his arms down so that he didn't batter the nurse too much. After all that effort, the Albuterol didn't seem to make much difference, one way or another. Except of course to traumatize William, since he had to sit there while this big bear of a man clamped a big plastic mask up over his mouth and nose. There are a lot of things that I don't enjoy, and holding down my child while he turns purple with anger and fear and thrashes around, whipping his head from side to side, is pretty much tops on my current list.

David advised me to let William play with the inhaler chamber, so he could get used to it. It might make him less afraid of it, David suggested. So I let William play with it (read: gnaw on it) this afternoon when he was playing with his blocks and his rings. He did seem a little less angry about the inhaler treatment this evening. At least he knew the treatment wouldn't last very long and then he'd be allowed to fling the inhaler around with glee.

And can I just say...God, I love William. After all that trauma this morning, he still gave me hugs and kisses later on when we got home. And I couldn't even sing songs to him because I lost my voice, so I'm all hoarse. He gets held down for scary medical treatments, doesn't even get to hear his favorite song ("The Wheels on the Bus") and yet he still loves me. He's such a good kid.