Saturday, November 21, 2009

So tired, tired of coughing...

Spending a few days feeling (and looking, wow you should see me!) like crud can make a mama think. Or over think, you've been there right? Yesterday, I made it back to the doc. A series of complications got me off the couch with my kids in tow to get there, but we made it. It is the most moving around that I have been able to do since the last trip to the doc so at least that's something. I am guessing that I really do look as bad as I feel because they took me right back (to the "I don't want what she has" room) and checked my sats. 96. I feel this deprived of breath at 96? We have been sent home with Ben satting below 95. How must that feel for him? Is it frightening? Is it so common for him to feel uncomfortable that this is just one more thing? Is that why he will let me hold him and tell him that he is going to be alright? Because he needs to be assured? Why doesn't he complain more? Is it just another unpredictable aspect of being Ben so he is willing to roll with it? Am I glad that I don't know the true answers to most of these questions? Hmm. Keep in mind that I am in an after hours clinic simply because my docs office had no openings. Too may sick folks. So now I have a doc asking me how I am feeling, without caring a bit. She asked how my breathing felt. I told her that it feels like someone is squeezing the bottom of my throat, that there are elastic bands around the bottom of my lungs and there is a stabbing pain just to the right of my spine every time I breathe. She looked at me and said "Oh that can't be right. Most people describe it as a tightening in their upper chest and just behind their throat." How is it OK to utterly disregard the answers that you solicit. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE ASTHMA< CROUP AND BROCITIS ALL AT THE SAME TIME! The Bad Lady was just another bully in a white coat. She is just the kind of person who I would never accept for my children. Jerk! Well what is has come down to is that this little bug has brought out my asthma. It (my asthma) doesn't bother me much, in fact I don't even have an inhaler anymore. Last time I used one was when I was pregnant with Kiera. I really dislike the side effects of albuterol so even when it does show a hint of aggression I don't "treat" it. But, can't breath so treatment it is. FYI, I do not recommend administering albuterol plus anti-inflammatory in a tiny room with a little girl who tends to tip toward the bouncy side and is very susceptible to anything with an "agitation" warning. Just sayin. Things got a bit interesting after that. Anyway, one treatment and my entire face was numb. I turned into a shaky ball of quiver to the point that it was hard to talk. And I, of course, want to cry for all the times we have hit my little dude with two or three of these in short succession. My goodness. To have no control over the decision, no solid grasp of the reason and even less of an understanding of the side effects that result! I am really going to have to work on getting him better words for what his little body is told to deal with! After being assured that any other thing I mentioned was my imagination (lung pain? what lung pain?) I was off to pick up scripts. Inhaler, steroids and the useless little "pearls" that always seem to be the next choice after cough meds with codeine (which I can't take). Why has no one though to choose a different med to mix with cough meds? Today, I am beat. I don't feel as BAD. No fever and now I can breath a bit more. It feels like I haven't slept in days which I guess is true. I am up again because flat doesn't work and coughing is just to dang painful now that I am not coughing through the asthma sponge. I am sitting out here listening to my sweet tired little family cough through their sleep and feel so bad for the little ones. Dave's a grownup, so he knows the drill. But the babies in our lives, we expect so much from them. We ask them to not make it harder than it has to be. And all that we can offer them in return is our warmth and assurance. We ask them to take our word for it. And they often do. Amazing little humans we have among us. Or, I could just be an over thinking whip of a grownup who has gone soft to the unpredictability of life. Yep, that could just be it.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Sick

It's a busy thing this life stuff. I keep thinking if we can just get past (blank) we can breath. Turns out I can't. Two weeks ago we got the call from the ped that Ben set off their "high risk" bells so could we bring him in for the h1n1 vac in the morning? Sure. So we did and that was that until Saturday, when he got the flu. It has been raging around his school for weeks and I was in fact surprised that he hadn't already gotten it BUT I was a bit put off with his getting it just two days after a shot that he was pretty pissed about. It hit him hard and fast. Dry cough, fever, runny nose, vomiting (aspiration?), headache, exhaustion. He was pretty pitiful but only for a few days. Considering what I feared we might be in for, better then I could have hoped. He was back to school on Wednesday. Then Thursday Kiera looked a little off, and sneezed about 50 times. She was a trooper and made it through the Fashion Show (where we all looked loverly in our V2V and Elephant Ears fashions) but woke on Friday with the crud. Then it got Dave. Then it got me. Sunday we made a family trip to the after hours doc because I was sick as a dog and if I'm going, Ben is going to get his chest listened to and we tossed in Kiera for good measure. Verdict, we have the flu. You know THE FLU. The only one that you can have right now. Ben has not craftily turned his into pneumonia (yet), Dave is getting over it, Kiera is still coughing so hard that she wants a sicky bowl with her in bed "in case I trow up" and I am having a heck of a time with it. I can tough through most but this is kicking my bum. I still have a fever for goodness sake. And if I could pay someone to loosen the hold on my neck and my chest I would. This is no monkey business, I have been down for six days. I got Ben off the bus today and was forced onto the couch to cough for an hour. I'm up now because when I am flat (aka "sleeping") I'm coughing. Who has 14 days for this crap? So no, after (blank) we can't breath, because I can't breath. Arggggg! hackhackhackhack