I know you do! Because what else could be more exciting than reading a blog all about a woman’s kids and all their sicknesses?

There are germs here. I’m pretty sure it’s the Plague. I can’t figure out where one germ ends and another germ begins. But hence you can’t take away my medical degree yet because our doctor can’t really figure it out either. Nearest we can tell there is tonsillitis (Noah), upper respiratory infections (Noah, Ethan, Teegan) and possibly a gastro-intenstial something-something (Noah, Addison, Paige). Apparently we decided to do ALL the winter viruses at one time.

Noah is not doing well. He has had a fever for several days. He is coughing and gagging constantly from the infection brewing on his tonsils and also, apparently, from the respiratory infection. He is struggling to stay hydrated and I think losing that battle. He is totally miserable. He can’t sleep. When we see him passed out on the bed or cough, we sigh a little sigh of relief and also realization that inevitably, in 20 minutes or less, he will wake up hysterical. I have never seen him so sick for so long. Once he had pertussis and even then, he was at least fine during the day and didn’t have a fever. I’m not sure what is going on. He’s been on antibiotics for 36 hours (4 doses) and still no improvement. I hope it will just take a little longer.  Meanwhile I’m pumping him full of stuff he doesn’t like - antibiotics, probiotics, ibuprofen when he’s in pain (which is always) and I have throat spray I really think he would find a relief but he will not even consider consenting. We are running the humidifier right under his nose all night long. I bought a new humidifier in case the other one was releasing harmful molds. I tried those Vicks things that plug in the wall to help break up any congestion. Nothing helps. Nothing works. There is no relief.

I didn’t write this post yesterday because it would have sounded like “wah wah wah, me me me”. I was not doing well. I was beyond exhausted. I had not slept in 5 nights and 6 days and I was in that exhausted totally irrational insane cranky state that does not look pretty in a blog. I was able to get some sleep last night, mostly because I’m now convinced through experience that he will not die from his recurring cough attacks which is not to say that I did not wake up every few minutes all night long. Just that I didn’t bound out of bed to save the dying child.

The good news is that, despite some strange things happening in the diaper, Addison immune system has flipped the bird to all these germs flying around. I guess six months in an orphanage gave her the parting gift of a killer immune system.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 11:30 am and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.