Friday, February 8, 2008

Oh, the screaming...

Mam's been a little under the weather this week. And if I'd been paying more attention, I would have known what was going on tonight without having to agonize about it. Today went well. I sent her back to school. Her cough sounds awful, but she was happy. No fever. She was happy when I picked her up. But by dinner (a nice dinner out with Gram and Grandpa at an Afghan place), she was starting to drag. She kept saying she was tired. By the time we got home, she was crying and complaining about the canker sores that have been dogging her this week. Pretty soon, it was time for cake, but she had started screaming. She ate a few bites and then Daddy took her to bed.

Only she didn't stay asleep. Half an hour later, there was more hysterical screaming. Daddy dealt with that too, but after a time, I couldn't take it anymore. She was clearly inconsolable. I went in there to relieve him. She was screaming, thrashing around, pulling the sheets off the bed, kicking the walls and finally...grabbing her ear. Oh. Of course. That nasty cough is just the kind of thing that goes with an ear infection and this is classic ear infection behavior for Mam.

Smunch has had very few ear infections and they hurt and he complained. Mam gets one (just one) every year. You'd think someone was amputating her legs or that she's suddenly gone completely mad. It's truly freakish. And it's the kind of thing that makes you wonder how any pediatrician can deny a child antibiotics in a situation like this. She's clearly in pain and her parents are losing their minds. And yeah, I was a genetics major in college. I know all about antibiotic resistance. It's really, really hard to care about the health of humankind with a small child screaming at 4am and nothing you can do to help her.

Happy birthday to me...

5 comments:

Queen Bee said...

Happy Birthday! Sorry about Mam...I hope she's feeling better. You TOTALLY deserve a do-over for your birthday celebration!

MommaWriter said...

Well...tonight we had a babysitter and we got to have that do-over. It was awesome. We had a terrific dinner and saw a movie of my choice (Atonement).

On the downside...After screaming all night, Mam really needed a nap this afternoon, so we left her in bed for half a second and she fell asleep. We woke her up at 4. That was half an hour before the babysitter showed up. And she had a fever. And I mean FEVER. Our ear thermometer, which is not at all reliable in that it generally reads about 3 degrees too high, registered at 106.8. We know how lame our thermometer is, but that's still pretty alarming.

I know what you're thinking. You went OUT??? Well, uh, yeah. I totally trust this babysitter and we encouraged her to call us if anything got out of control. She didn't call. I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have if I'd known Mam was having fun instead of lying like a little roasting turnip on the sofa, but it was still a really nice evening. Good to be home though...

Queen Bee said...

Oh good...I'm glad you got to go out. "Roasting turnip" perfect way to describe a 3 year old with a fever! Oh, and speaking of good movie's (and I heard that Atonement was wonderful) My Mom and I saw Juno last weekend. I LOVED it and recommend it highly!

Queen Bee said...

Oh good...I'm glad you got to go out. "Roasting turnip" perfect way to describe a 3 year old with a fever! Oh, and speaking of good movie's (and I heard that Atonement was wonderful) My Mom and I saw Juno last weekend. I LOVED it and recommend it highly!

tiffany said...

Haven't commented in awhile but just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your recent posts - the letterboxing stuff and also the what it's like one. And the kids look darling as ever! Saturday we were just diagnosed with our first ear infection after having a horrid January at preschool with cold after cold. Not a fun time for us!

Hope everyone gets to feeling well. Influenza and rotavirus are still going around the South Bay big time our ped said last weekend.