no more nervous new mom
January 10th, 2007 by Liss
Well, I was both right and wrong. The teething was part of the problem (tooth #4 has finally made its appearance to the outside world), but the crying, fussing unbearable crankiness was also because Abby was sick. Really sick, actually. We’ve all seen the ads that talk about the dreaded RSV and how it afflicts preemies and tiny babies, right? Very sad, very scary. I worried about it a little bit last year when Abby was still so small, but once we got through the winter largely unscathed, I pretty much figured we were safe.
HAH. When will I learn??
Abby started running a low fever mid-week, along with the endless river of drool. We didn’t think too much of it, since she is the Niagara Falls of Drool when she is teething and the fever was no big deal. Then she started wheezing a little bit, and the fever kept going up despite fairly continuous doses of medicine that should have been sending it in the other direction, and I thought that hmm, maybe a touch of a bug that’s been going around.
And then she was wheezing a LOT and her lips were somewhere between pale and bluish, and I thought WHAT THE HELL (and also OH SHIT and I WANT MY MOMMY) and I called the pediatrician’s office and talked to the lovely triage nurse and told her we were on our way RIGHT THEN and no, I was not asking for an appointment or for advice or whatever, I am really just TELLING you that I’m bringing her in RIGHT NOW and so you should just rearrange whatever you need to rearrange to make sure that the doctor is ready and waiting with open arms to FIX MY BABY RIGHT NOW. (And then I took a breath.)
There is absolutely no feeling in the world worse than listening to your baby struggle and fight to breathe and not being able to do anything about it other than hold her and kiss her head and whisper who-even-knows-what and pray that the medicine will start working soon. Like, how about RIGHT THE HELL NOW DAMN IT.
We spent hours in the doctor’s office that afternoon. Not waiting to see the doctor - we never wait more than a couple of minutes to see her. (Everyone who does not see our pediatrician hates me now, I’m sure.) We were there so that the doctor could check on Abby every fifteen minutes or so while the nebulizer treatments did their thing. (Doctor: So what plans did you have for this afternoon? Me: You mean all those pressing engagements that are more important than FIXING MY POOR SICK BABY?)
It was obviously a tough call between sending us to the hospital vs. sending us home, and she didn’t want us to go anywhere until she was sure she was sending us in the right direction. Finally (THANK GOD) the treatments worked enough that Abby was breathing pretty decently and I could bring her home for the night. (A night in which we then woke her up every four hours like clockwork to give her another nebulizer treatment, but I am trying to block those hours out of my head because the sleep deprivation was very much like a bad, bad flashback that I am not prepared to deal with right now.)
Abby is more or less better now - well on the mend, anyway. If I hadn’t already loved her pediatrician before this, I would definitely love her now. I’m pretty sure that a lot of doctors would have shuttled us right off to the pediatric ER up the street, not wanting to be bothered by taking up a whole treatment room for too long when there were other patients to see. Instead, she made us feel as if we were the most important people on her schedule and she had all the time in the world for us. And the thing is - I think she makes everyone feel that way.