You only get to have one last week of your 30's, so might as well make it a good one. Or, so the forces that orchestrate my life seem to feel. So, where we left off last Monday was that Lemon had come through one of those sort of 36-hour high fever and vomiting scenarios fairly intact, with some cough just due to generally being sick but not really a respiratory thing. All was well for a solid, I don't know, 12 hours thereafter.
Then, Lime brought a proper respiratory virus home from preschool. Both kids were pretty miserable. I mean even Lime coughed until he puked on at least one occasion, and was really not himself for several days. Papa Bear got it as well, and was also in an advanced state of Man Cold for several days. It hit poor Lemon really hard though. Honestly, this was the worst illness we've gone through in quite some time, probably since last winter I would guess. The shear intensity and frequency of the cough had to be seen to be believed. We backed down on tube feeds. Still puking. Backed down more. Still puking. Coughing and crying at night because he was so exhausted and just wanted to sleep. Coughing to the point of puking at the dinner table and then still wanting to eat because he was so hungry from not getting any formula for days on end. We were pretty much at the end of our chains. After an especially bad night on Thursday (like, really bad), it seemed totally clear that we needed to start Cayston first thing in the morning, so I got out all the stuff and sterilized it at 11pm so we'd be ready to go Friday morning.
And then, Friday morning, things seemed better. Not totally better, but just better enough that we decided to wait until mid-day, just to see. At mid-day, things still seemed incrementally better, so we decided to wait until evening. And then we decided to wait and see how the night went. Less coughing, no puking. Since then, little by little, we've crept our way almost all the way back to baseline. It's quite astonishing, really. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but it does seem like perhaps we made it through this one without antibiotics also. And Lemon only lost 5lb in the process. I'm trying not to think about how that took us an entire summer to put on, and it's gone and it's only the beginning of October.Phew. I'm drained just writing about it. As a parent, all I want to do in those situations is trade places with Lemon. Let me do this for you, let me go through this so you don't have to. And that's just not an option. All I can do is try my best to help him and hope that I'm doing the right things, making the right decisions.
