Ringing In The New Year With A Bug!

Yes, you read that correctly.

Instead of ringing in the New Year with a BANG, we rang it in with a bug...of the illness variety.

As I mentioned in my Christmas post, both of my boys were sick before and during the Holidays.

Thankfully, R.J., our 8 year old, was able to kick strep throat and his sinus infection rather quickly, but poor little Colton got sick and then he got sicker, and even now (three weeks later) he is STILL battling to feel better.

In fact, my poor little man has had a bulb syringe stuck up his nose and sucked out so many times that hopefully we have killed any desire he might entertain once he gets a little bit older of wanting to insert any sort of foreign object up his nose.


Add to that our hopes that Colton will continue to have the same wonderful patience he exhibited for us during the 5 ½ hours on New Year’s Eve (day) that we were waiting with him at Pri-Med (a doc-in-the-box place) because of high fever, SEVERE congestion, an ear ache that a first round of antibiotic evidently did not clear up, and a cough we could not contain.

A cough that had gotten so bad, it kept our baby up for all but about 25 minutes the previous night.

You could just look at his face that day and see how worn out he was.


Fast forward a few days later (this past Tuesday to be exact) and we’re back at the doctor’s office (although this time to his actual pediatrician).

According to the doctor, Colton's left ear was still a bit inflamed and after listening to his “gunky sounding” chest with her stethoscope she determined that yes, he was having a really hard time breathing and his little lungs were definitely having to work overtime because it.

Upon hearing that I went to an immediate scary flashback in my mind of Colton being born early (late pre-term) and having to spend his first 24 hours in the NICU because of his "squishy lungs" something referred to in the medical community as "Wimpy White Boy Syndrome" (and no, I did not make that up).

Anyway, what I naively thought would be short re-check by that doctor and a “quick fix” to make my baby feel better turned into me leaving with a nebulizer/breathing machine, medicine for it (Albuterol), an oral steroid (prednisolone), instructions to continue the nose sucking, give him over-the-counter Mucinex DM for his cough, and a word of caution that if Colton didn’t get markedly better after a week of doing the breathing treatments every 4 hours around the clock (unless he’s sleeping)… we might be looking at some hospital time [insert me welling up with tears at this point].

Not wanting the latter to become a reality, I quickly got myself together and listened intently while the nurse showed me how to use the breathing machine.

Nurse: “Insert tubing here, pour medicine vial in there, screw mask on here, plug unit into wall over there, and hold it against Colton’s face so that his nose and mouth are covered.”

Me: “Well, that doesn’t seem so hard.”

Nurse: “You’ll know the treatment is through when you hear the machine start to make a “sputtering” noise indicating that the medicine is almost gone.”

Me: “Okay.”

Nurse: “I’ll be back to check on the both of you in five minutes.”

Me [screaming silently in my head]: “WAIT, you mean I have to do it to him now, without you in here to help?!”

Me [what actually comes out of my mouth]: “Sounds good.”

Yeh, right?!

Trust me, never in my life has five minutes seemed so much of an eternity than when I’ve been forced to put my sweet little child into a bear hug and hold a plastic mask against his face while a strange steam is being emitted into his airway.

The joys of parenthood, right?!

So here we are on day 3 of the breathing treatments and if you could hear my 7-month old’s pitiful and intense crying when I put the mask to his face, you’d think I am either (a) torturing him or (b) fixated with turning him into a miniature Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs.


Of course, just like any caring parent, I will do whatever it takes to make my son feel better and thankfully, he’s so little that he won’t even remember me doing this to him [I hope].

In the meantime, forget early Valentine decorations, my dining room table will continue to be adorned as follows…


Oh, and if you don’t mind, could you please say an extra prayer for my little guy and that he will get to feeling better soon.

Thanks so much!