Cough-Cough-I’m-A-Worrier-Cough
Reed has had a sporadic cough for going on three weeks. Last weekend, it was a little more prevalant and one eye was goopy (matted), so I took him to our pediatrician’s walk in clinic on Sunday praying he wasn’t sick with pinkeye. It was nothing, just a cold.
His goopy eye went away immediately, but his cough has gotten more frequent this week. At night, he was hacking like crazy and a humidifer was not helping. I even kicked Chris out of the bed so I could mointor him all night. Today, I bundled him up and we took him back to the Sunday walk in this afternoon to ask the doctor. Everything checks out fine, he has never even had a fever since the coughing started weeks ago. They think its just some drainage ticking his throat.
I hope I am not going to be running him to the doctor over every little thing, but working at a children’s hospital – albeit not in any medical capacity– I hear about all the nasty germs kids are getting. I’m practically having night terrors about RSV. That is some nasty stuff! My friend’s little 6 month old spent several hours in our ED to get his breathing under control because he had RSV and his been very sick for a while now.
I just need to find a healthy balance between nonchalance and panic. I don’t know if that is possible if you are a mom (or at least a new mom, anyway)!
January 19th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
The first few months of day care is the toughest because he will be exposed to germs and will get sick fairly often (especially this time of year). But once he builds up resistance, he will stop getting sick all the time. We went to the doctor’s office a bunch of times during Jack Henry’s first year. First cold, first throw-up, etc. That’s normal. We were pretty over-protective, but that’s better than letting something go too long. Luckily babies are very resilient and quickly heal on their own. It’s tough seeing your little guy sick, though.