Lessons: The Sickies

I consider myself lucky for having such a healthy child.  He rarely gets sick and he is such a trooper when he does.  He tries to be his normal self but sometimes the illness brings him down and he gets whiny and cranky and clingy.  This week it was a cough with a slight cold.

He started maybe Friday with a cough.  I didn't think much of it, people cough without being sick.  Then Saturday he was cranky and had a fever.  He didn't grub on french fries.  That's when I knew he was sick.  He suffered this cough Sunday night and every night since then, not eating much and being very whiny.  I love my baby and don't like him feeling sick like that.  I was tempted for a moment to call the doctor but I know what he'll say: fluids, rest, tylenol for the fever, bring him back if he doesn't get any better in a week or to the ER if his fever gets really high.  Why bother?  So I decided to take matters into my own hands and play pharmacist.

I spent about 20 minutes standing in front of the children's medicine section at the Walmart comparing boxes.  I decided on the Triaminic for cough, grape flavoured (yuck!).  It says for kids 4 and older so 3 1/2 is close enough and I wasn't going to give him the full dose anyway since he doesn't take meds often.

I tried it right before bed, at 10pm, with surprising success.  It is much more liquidy than the tylenol and I knew the grape flavour wasn't going to be a hit.  I used a siringe and little by little with plenty of silliness from me he took 3/4 of a teaspoon (the box said 1 teaspoon for 4-6 years) with little mess.  Then I put him in bed.

Big mistake.

Within minutes we noticed he was happily playing in his bed, no coughing, and no intentions of sleep.  I kept telling him to settle down and he would, for a few minutes, before starting up again.  Then I heard velcro.  There is no velcro on his bed so it only meant one thing.  I stand up and look into the bed and notice lots of skin.  I stand on my bed and see a fully naked, laughing, Nicholas.  So I climbed up the bed and put the diaper back on, telling him that if he took it off again he had to wear underwear (I know, BAD!!), dressed him and tucked him in.  A few minutes later his feet were hanging off the side of the rail.  *sigh*  So I tell my SO, over Skype, "Good thing they don't add alcohol to cough syrup anymore!" and reached for the bottle that was still on my bed.

I'm taking very basic chemistry right now, the professor calls it toy department chemistry.  Right now we are learning about organic chemistry, at a very basic level, and I am actually understanding this tuff.  So I start reading the ingredients list and actually understanding what this crap is and what it looks like.  One of the 'inactive' ingredients is sorbitol.  The -ol ending tells me it's a type of alcohol.  Double *sigh*  He finally fell asleep around 12:30am.



He woke up this morning at 8am, happily singing and ready to play.  He asked for chocolate pudding for breakfast, which was welcomed after days of poor eating.  So he is definitely feeling much better.

Lessons learned:

1. Read labels, I finally know what all those chemicals are or at least have a good idea and now how to get more info without getting a headache. 
2. Meds before bed, generally a bad idea.  I've had good results from plain acetaminophen but that doesn't mean it will work for others.
3. Probably stay away from any medicine that says 'night time' on it.  I don't want my kid sleeping for 15 hours straight either.
4. Frustration from a sick baby is so much easier to handle with someone to keep you company, even from afar.  I think this is the first time he's been real sick that I haven't lost it.  I usually get so overwhelmed that even though I know he just doesn't feel well I loose my temper.

Tomorrow we shall go to Disneyland and celebrate feeling better :P

Oh, and no, he didn't get his pudding for breakfast.  I sent him off promising he could have it when we get home tonight.  I'm not *that* bad of a momma.