How Much Better Collin is Not

Let me think, I didn't take my boy into the doctor when he first started coughing because, let's face it, you are more likely to get struck by lightning while winning the lottery than to get an acute care appointment. So, I let the darn cough go for about two weeks before I finally broke down and called. That was the when he finally got the first croup diagnosis. A week later it was back. That was two weeks ago. Now, he's had it again for well over a week. So, where does that put us on the space time continuum for the length of time for how long we should be waiting out how long it should be before he just "gets better?"

Yesterday, we went for a family run. I like the idea of instilling fitness into my kid young, sick or not, so why not, right? Kidding, of course he was in the stroller. But, he begged to get out and walk the one block home from the gate. I let him, since he's been kept virtually immobilized for the past week. Even tickling him the other morning got him into such a fit of coughing that he threw up. Anyway, he walked one block, plus ten more steps to the couch where he promptly threw up all over the place. Nice.

So, we demanded an appointment with the "good" doctor this morning instead of Dr. Just-give-him-Benedryl. Oh what a difference! Apparently one of them went to real medical school and one of them did it via correspondence. Either that or one of them gets a kickback from Benedryl.

No one wants their kid to be sick. But after all this time, I want to know what is wrong with my kid so I can do something about it other than sit on my hands; or more aptly, sit with my hands around a bucket in his lap. Good doctor, the following is a thank you:

1. Thanks for realizing that the stethoscope is in fact, mobile. When you moved it to more than one spot on his chest, I wanted to fall to the floor and praise you. What joy to hear you say, "everyone who said his lungs are clear...they've been wrong."

2. Despite the fact that an acute appointment is only a 15 min block, thank you for screwing up your schedule for the morning and giving us an hour of your time. I hate me for other people but eh, my kid was the sick one today.

3. Thank you for issuing us our very own nebulizer, not just to borrow, but to keep. It came with Legos!

4. Thank you for prescribing nebulizer steroids and Allbuteral to clear his lungs and make him better and for making sure he's got enough to stay on them until....

5. The follow up appointment that you made sure was scheduled with YOU because YOU want to see him again

6. Thank you for the X-Ray you ordered of his lungs, just to be sure because this has gone on so long

7. Thank you for checking his oxygen levels in his blood not once, not twice but three times

because you weren't comfortable with the readings

8. Thank you for prescribing antibiotics, not because you thought I wanted them but because you truly believed he has an infection (oh, and by the way, thanks for double-checking that you didn't prescribe what he is allergic to)

9. Thank you, overall, for just being so darn thorough

10. Thank you for not once, not a single time, saying "Benedryl"

Now, we just have to get the hang of this nebulizer business because we have to do it for the next three stinking weeks! Collin was so anti-nebulizer at the doctor's office that I was afraid they were going to burst back in and accuse me of beating him. I was there alone because Bryon had to wait for maintenance at the house. I have learned a valuable lesson with all this: never underestimate the strength of a child that doesn't want to do something. He kicked my butt this morning.

Anyway, the good doctor thinks Collin has bronchitis at this point, in addition to croup, which in all likelihood isn't quite gone. So, the cough is going to be our houseguest a little while longer. He thinks all of this might have started from bacterial infection and that's what he's treating with the antibiotics but because it's gone on so long, his little lungs are so inflamed, we have to treat them pretty hard. Poor guy. It's so sad to see him totally unable to play when he wants to. He feels better and that's the worst because he wants to play. The slightest bit of activity though and he's a hurl hose. It's awful. Fingers crossed this new treatment will work!