Poor Little Baby
May 16th, 2007 |It’s been a tough week for Baby Smithers as well as a tough week for his parents.
He picked up a cold last week (at school I’m sure) and developed some rather distressing effects from this cold. In addition to the typical ear infection, he also began to suffer from an asthmatic reaction. This has required us to pick up a nebulizer, a rather noisy device that allows for medication to be administered via a mist to the airways.
As Baby Smithers is only 17 months old now he is not quite sure of what is going on with the nebulizer and is not at all stoked about the mask or mouth piece. However, in order to glean any effect at all from the medicine he must breath as much of it into his lungs as possible. This has forced his mother and I into a situation where we have to basically fight him in order to treat him. I have had to hold him in my lap, use my left arm to keep him arms out of the way and my right hand to hold his head still while Mrs. Smithers keeps the mouth piece in place. All the while Baby Smithers is screaming, crying, kicking and fighting trying to get away from us. Very stressful as I am sure you can imagine.
In addition to the fun of the nebulizer, Baby Smithers has also developed a pretty amazing case of eczema. Eczema is an inflammation of the skin, basically a rash. It started last Saturday with bumpy red skin on his cheeks and, as of yesterday morning, is now covering his entire body. It dries out the skin and causes itching. We have resorted to keeping his skin covered with various topical lotions and ointments in order to give him some relief but, needless to say, he is quite miserable.
I understand that asthma and eczema can be common in kids and the hope is that they grow out of having these kinds of hyper-reactions at some point. But it is heart breaking to see such a happy little boy having to suffer through these issues. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot worse things that can happen than wheezy breathing and red itchy skin. But, as a parent, you want your kids to be healthy and happy at all times and not have to be at all troubled with the realities of life and the world until they can at least understand what is going on.
Watching your child suffer is the unexpected part of parenting that really sucks. You think about it constantly and it affects every single aspect of the rest of your daily life. These are not the kind of situations that you imagine yourself dealing with when you think about becoming a parent. Instead, they are the kind of situations that surprise you with a smack in the face and give you no choice but to deal with them as best you can. I hope he gets over this soon and can get back to running and laughing and having fun.
In the mean time he and I have been exploring the joys of the bicycle trailer. We took our inaugural ride on Mother’s Day, which gave Mrs. Smithers the opportunity for a nap, and he had a blast. We rode for an hour and 20 minutes and I think he could have gone longer. On Monday we went out for another hour. It’s now to the point where if he sees the bike trailer in the garage he runs for it and tries to get in. I’ll be picking him up early from school to get him home and slathered up with more skin ointment and some more huff and puff with the nebulizer. Then he and I are going for a ride.
