week ending jan 2, 2007:

Week ending January 2, 2007: Well, we lived to see the New Year. After 4 nights of being up in the middle of the night with coughing kids, I could hear that Alex’s cough was causing his throat to constrict, so I took him to the doctor and got an oral steroid for him. Then the next day he complained of ear pain and I spent until midnight at NightTime Pediatrics with Alex only to learn that he has a double ear infection. Alex’s cough continued to get worse and agitated his asthma. The nebulizer helped, but I got really nervous a couple times when he was coughing so hard and frequently and long that he couldn’t talk and his face started to get purple. At one point it took him a full minute of coughing and sputtering to say (cough, cough) “I’m…” (cough, cough) “I…” (cough, cough) “I’m…” (cough, cough) “I’m sick!”. On Monday we went to visit some friends and he so wanted to play with the other kids, but he couldn’t walk up a flight of steps without having a 5 minute coughing fit that had other parents asking Alex if he was ok. It was comforting to know that other parents found his type of coughing as worrisome as I did and that I wasn’t just being paranoid. Chloe’s cough seemed to be getting worse also and on Monday we noticed Chloe’s eye’s were producing a lot of discharge. A trip to the doctor’s today revealed that she has pink eye, and an ear infection. So in the past 7 days, we’ve been to the doctor 3 times, and we are currently giving the kids a total of 7 medications for 14 total doses in a day. We did have a few bright spots. One day Chloe greeted her dad when he came home from work and asked matter-of-factly “how was your day, Dad?”. Every time the kids and I would come home Alex would walk in the door, look around and says “presents still here!”. He was genuinely pleased. He still has trouble when things are new figuring out if they are just barrowed (like when we visit his friends and he gets to play with the toys but not keep them), or when new things are actually his to keep. I think it takes a week or more before he really believes that something new is actually his to keep. Another bright spot came on New Year’s Eve when Alex and Chloe were excited to be going to a party and Chloe was asking Alex if he liked her party dress, if he liked her ribbon, if he liked her rhinestones, and he answered all “yes”, and then Chloe said “aw, Brother, you’re the best!”.