Sickypoo

February 16-20, 2009: We were looking forward to enjoying the national holiday by hanging out in our p.j.s longer than we ought to and watching Hoda and Kathie Lee on the fluffy hour of the Today show. But instead, we abandoned Grammy on the last day of her visit and headed to the pediatrician's office. Brady had decided that he wasn't all that hungry and his cough was getting deeper and sounded worse. He was still a happy guy, though. No fever. The doc listened to his wheezy chest and looked in his eyes, ears and throat. She had to scrape a honkin' chunk of ear wax out of his right ear, too. BW did *not* like that! Diagnosis: bronchiolitis.

We picked up Grammy and headed to Walgreens for an aerochamber and some Ventolin. The doc also recommended Pedialite to keep the boy hydrated while he refused to eat. Too bad he refused to drink it, even though it was flavorless and mixed with his milk.

Unfortunately, Brady started in with a fever that night and was irritable for days. We learned quickly that we are two parents spoiled by a child that never cries...except when he doesn't feel good! Tylenol helped dramatically. But the lingering fever brought us back to the pediatrician where we learned he'd contracted his first ear infection. Yeah! Pink-medicine (amoxicillin) time! Surprisingly, Brady wasn't as excited about the pink medicine as I was. So we had the poor kid on a regimin of butt-temperature-taking with each diaper change, Tylenol every four hours, Ventolin four times per day and amoxicillin twice per day. What a good, tolerant patient he is. And we had to prep a batch of four-paste for the firey diaper rash that started up right after his first dose of antibiotics.

And let me tell you, it is imperative that all new parents find some device for propping up their sick kid. We use this contraption. Congested heads and ear infections are mighty painful. We even moved the positioner to the changing pad each time we changed his diaper. We also got our money's worth of of our glider/recliner. If you have to sleep all night while holding your baby upright, you might as well be comfortable!