Full tilt fall continues apace. This past week, I went to St Paul, MN for work for a few days, leaving Lemon and Lime in Papa Bear's capable hands. It seems that all went well on both ends. I had a great seeing my coworkers, who turn out to be actual physical beings, not just disembodied voices that I hear on the phone every day. The boys and Papa Bear ate Domino's Pizza, watched Star Wars, and did whatever other male bonding things there are to do when Mama's away.
Of course, when I returned on Friday and picked Lemon up from school, the first thing I noticed was that he was coughing again. Fantastic. He seemed perky enough, though, so we thought we'd just go with our standby strategy of trying to shake it out of him with extra therapy over the weekend. Friday night was fine, Saturday morning was fine, and then Saturday around mid-day he just collapsed, took a 3-hour nap, and woke up with a temperature of 101F. Yikes. Lots more coughing, and of course some puking Saturday night. Fun times. Sunday was somewhat better from a cough perspective, and by Sunday evening the fever had quit as well. Today he still has a little bit of a cough but no fever, and seems back to normal operating parameters otherwise. In an abundance of caution, since I did just hear a cough or two, I went into his room to turn down the speed on his feeding pump. Formula only counts if it stays on the inside, after all.
In reflecting over this recent series of little illnesses, here is what I think. Lemon gets a cough no matter what sort of virus he's picked up. Things that might just cause a random fever or malaise or stomach upset in everyone else give him a cough. Every time. Obviously it's still important to do the extra therapy to keep his lungs clear so that he doesn't develop a bacterial infection, but I need to stop thinking of all of these things like they're really respiratory per se. Once the virus is cleared and the fever is gone, the cough dries up. I guess that's comforting? I still need my magic dipstick test so I can tell right away what's going on, rather than waiting around for a few days to see if we're in "random virus" territory or someplace more sinister.
One little friendly reminder, speaking of sinister--flu season is fast upon us. I took Lime with me to Walgreens this weekend to do an errand so I got my flu shot while I was there. If you find yourself at your local purveyor if immunizations in the coming weeks, please get your flu shot too. It's good for you and those around you, especially the more delicate folks that you may come into contact with! 
