Sick Lessons

We're on Round 3. Since February. It's the Season of Sickness. The germs are everywhere, sprinkling down on us like invisible bits of confetti that we wear home. Oh, how I want life to get back to "normal," whatever that is. I am tired of everyone being sick and worrying when I am going to be. I feel so bad for them all... The First Nguyen and the Little Nguyens. There is not much I can do to make them feel better other than to keep blowing their noses and get them to drink lots of fluids.

Before this year, the First Little Nguyen had only been prescribed antibiotics twice in his whole life, and the Second Little Nguyen once. I was so happy about that. Given my history with these medications, I have always been very nervous about how my children would respond to antibiotics. My allergies are too many to list...I would need like four Medic-Alert bracelets to list them all. That's some may-jah medical bling! Thankfully, the boys have responded well. And me? I just pray I don't get any of their "confetti" on me! I don't want to be a part of any antibiotic-related experiments that might land me in the hospital.

I have learned several things during the infamous Illnesses of 2008.

1. Saline nasal spray is a good thing. It makes their little noses run, but that's the point when battling a sinus infection, right?
2. One trip to the doctor does not always guarantee a diagnosis. It seems that in order to find out what's really going on with the Little Nguyens, I have to schedule an appointment with the pediatrician for the day after my original appointment.
3. Trust your instincts. If you don't agree with the doctor's diagnosis, follow up with a different pediatrician the next day. This has saved us twice this year.
4. Milk is not one of the fluids doctors are referring to when they tell you to provide lots of liquids for your children to drink. If one has a child with an unparallelled gag reflex, as does the Second Little Nguyen, milk...ummm....thickens things up a bit. And it is guaranteed to come up chunky. It doesn't come out of carpet fibers very well. Ick.
5. Always push your husband to go to the Minute Clinic at CVS pharmacy. Even if you know he will be angry with you for nagging him. It's the best thing since sliced bread. When one's husband practically coughs up a lung and insists that he is not sick, one needs a little reassurance, right?
6. Bunk beds are not a convenient arrangement when one has sick children. We recently bunked the Little Nguyens' beds. It was way cool...for about two weeks...until the Nguyen on the top bunk got sick. Let's just say it's a little difficult for Mommy to provide effective, soothing bedside care when she can't sit on the bedside. Mommy perching on the ladder in the middle of the night just doesn't work. We need to rethink this bunk bed arrangement sometime in the near future.
7. If Mommy is scheduled to be out of town, even just overnight, one of the children will get sick. Guaranteed.
8. If the family has planned to trip to go out-of-town, one or both of the children, and very possibly your husband, will get sick. Guaranteed. It doesn't matter if it's your 8th anniversary. Or your husband's birthday.
9. Always purchase adjustable-waist pants for one's child. My children have tiny waists anyway (unlike their mother), and their little waists shrink when they are sick. Appetites have a way of disappearing when they are sick, and naturally, they loose weight. As a result, their pants become too big in the waist. And then they come home from school with notes that say, "So and So was showing his underwear today..." And then you have to yell at your child, reaffirming that not everyone thinks his underwear is cool to look at...even if they are robot print underwear.
10. Activity levels do not determine wellness or sickness. He has a 101 degree fever, but right now he's a hungry Giganotosaurus chasing an Argentinosaurus. That does not mean he is well. And he will be crying in about 8.5 seconds about how sore his throat is. At that point, he will no longer be a Giganotosaurus... he will be my sick little boy again.