Allergens Redux
This blog’s regular readers will remember my recent post complaining about my allergies. In case you don’t devote segments of your brain to remembering minutiae from my life, scroll down a couple pages or read my quick review: My nose was simultaneously stuffed and running. It sucked.
A week later I can look back and say, “allergies? Not so much.” In the ensuing time, first Ellie then Abbie contracted colds leading me to think that, while allergens contributed to my misery, cold molecules caused most of it. On one hand this is a relief because I feared that I had suddenly gone from mildly uncomfortable to tragically snotty in the presence of pollen. It’s good to know that this time next year I’ll be just irritated enough to be unexplainably slightly grumpier, though I’ll also be raising three children under the age of three at that time so no one may notice a little extra grumpiness. On the other hand, I wish I would have known that I was actually sick so I could have taken some steps to dealing with it, like take some of my sweet controlled medicines containing pseudoephedrine (shh, don’t tell the authorities) or call in sick to my job, and when I say “job” I’m of course referring to this blog. Oh, and had I known I was sick maybe I wouldn’t have transferred germs to the rest of my family. That’s important too.
Ellie came down with my cold at the best possible time during her residency. She’s on a couple of relatively easy rotations giving her plenty of time to rest. Had this cold struck a few weeks sooner or later, she would have been on “Medicine,” a brutal rotation requiring lots of running around and little sleep. I believe “Medicine” earned its name because of the powerful drugs many residents have to take to survive it. Of course when you’re pregnant with twins no time is a good time for a cold, especially if you’re trying to work at the same time. The past couple weeks have been especially harsh for her as her pregnant body has grown in size from “two-bedroom loft” to “three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath ranch.”
Abbie is accepting her affliction surprisingly well. The last time she was sick I remember her being exceedingly cranky, even more so than usual. She’s been in a fairly good mood the past couple of days in spite of her snot-encrusted sinuses, possibly because she’s still too young to remember happier times and nasal breathing. In fact, yesterday was one of her best days in a long time as she was content to busy herself with her books and staircases while I did important work like cleaning out our messy basement and cleaning out my messier e-mail account.
I suspect her suspiciously pleasant demeanor of late is related to the powerful* cold medicine I’m giving her before bedtime that lets her sleep extraordinarily well. The medicine is basically a 12-hour children’s version of Benadryl. Benadryl is a super decongestant, drying out sinuses to the point where you may start licking used dishes in an attempt to contract another cold to moisten things back up a bit. Not that this drying out has much of an effect on Abbie; some medications have no effect on children, especially very young children. What Benadryl does do to all human beings regardless of age (except for my mother apparently) is make them very sleepy. There are many ethical questions revolving around the practice of giving young children medicine that does nothing for them but put them to sleep, but I have no time to ponder those questions while enjoying a full night of sleep myself instead of comforting her every couple of hours.
Despite her relatively good mood this time, I can easily infuriate her by trying to wipe her nose. She’s always hated the nasal aspirator, but this anger at the tissue paper is new. Her fury may be related to the abrasion that she suffered falling off the steps the other day. Now when I try to wipe away the snot oozing out her nose, I apparently irritate the raw patch on her nose and she reacts like Jeff Gordon suffering a race-ending accident. Thanks to this blog, she’ll be able to remember forever about the time how she got a cold and had her nose wiped at 16 months, and it sucked.
* “Powerful” here is defined as “expensive.”
A week later I can look back and say, “allergies? Not so much.” In the ensuing time, first Ellie then Abbie contracted colds leading me to think that, while allergens contributed to my misery, cold molecules caused most of it. On one hand this is a relief because I feared that I had suddenly gone from mildly uncomfortable to tragically snotty in the presence of pollen. It’s good to know that this time next year I’ll be just irritated enough to be unexplainably slightly grumpier, though I’ll also be raising three children under the age of three at that time so no one may notice a little extra grumpiness. On the other hand, I wish I would have known that I was actually sick so I could have taken some steps to dealing with it, like take some of my sweet controlled medicines containing pseudoephedrine (shh, don’t tell the authorities) or call in sick to my job, and when I say “job” I’m of course referring to this blog. Oh, and had I known I was sick maybe I wouldn’t have transferred germs to the rest of my family. That’s important too.
Ellie came down with my cold at the best possible time during her residency. She’s on a couple of relatively easy rotations giving her plenty of time to rest. Had this cold struck a few weeks sooner or later, she would have been on “Medicine,” a brutal rotation requiring lots of running around and little sleep. I believe “Medicine” earned its name because of the powerful drugs many residents have to take to survive it. Of course when you’re pregnant with twins no time is a good time for a cold, especially if you’re trying to work at the same time. The past couple weeks have been especially harsh for her as her pregnant body has grown in size from “two-bedroom loft” to “three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath ranch.”
Abbie is accepting her affliction surprisingly well. The last time she was sick I remember her being exceedingly cranky, even more so than usual. She’s been in a fairly good mood the past couple of days in spite of her snot-encrusted sinuses, possibly because she’s still too young to remember happier times and nasal breathing. In fact, yesterday was one of her best days in a long time as she was content to busy herself with her books and staircases while I did important work like cleaning out our messy basement and cleaning out my messier e-mail account.
I suspect her suspiciously pleasant demeanor of late is related to the powerful* cold medicine I’m giving her before bedtime that lets her sleep extraordinarily well. The medicine is basically a 12-hour children’s version of Benadryl. Benadryl is a super decongestant, drying out sinuses to the point where you may start licking used dishes in an attempt to contract another cold to moisten things back up a bit. Not that this drying out has much of an effect on Abbie; some medications have no effect on children, especially very young children. What Benadryl does do to all human beings regardless of age (except for my mother apparently) is make them very sleepy. There are many ethical questions revolving around the practice of giving young children medicine that does nothing for them but put them to sleep, but I have no time to ponder those questions while enjoying a full night of sleep myself instead of comforting her every couple of hours.
Despite her relatively good mood this time, I can easily infuriate her by trying to wipe her nose. She’s always hated the nasal aspirator, but this anger at the tissue paper is new. Her fury may be related to the abrasion that she suffered falling off the steps the other day. Now when I try to wipe away the snot oozing out her nose, I apparently irritate the raw patch on her nose and she reacts like Jeff Gordon suffering a race-ending accident. Thanks to this blog, she’ll be able to remember forever about the time how she got a cold and had her nose wiped at 16 months, and it sucked.
* “Powerful” here is defined as “expensive.”
posted by Matt at
9:51 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home