When everything drags because you’re sick

The last eight days have felt very long. Being sick, especially so sick that you can’t even do everyday things, is truly the worst. It feels like you are non-functional and cannot get anything done. While at this point, I can do things like work emails, the occasional call, and everyday household tasks, it’s like I am just waiting for my next coughing fit to happen. And when it does happen, who knows how long it will last and how exhausted I will be after. The act of coughing really wears on your body. It literally shakes your entire body inside out. And when all this mucus comes out, it’s not only exhausting but disgustingly unpleasant. I am still waiting to see the light at the end when I finally feel better and like I’m not waiting for yet another coughing fit, but I’m not sure when that will be at this point. Everything just feels like it’s dragging, and I have no motivation to do anything.

On day 7 of being ill

It’s now officially been a week of being sick. It’s been over a week of Pookster being sick, but the good news is that she’s on the mend, while I’m still hacking up phlegm. I contacted my OB-GYN to get a gastroenterologist referral (my primary care doctor has stopped accepting any insurance – how fun!), and the earliest appointment they had available was for next Thursday, so I made the appointment. I hope they will be able to shed some light on what I’ve been experiencing with coughing fits and endless mucus during every cold for the last six years.

It’s annoying to think about how I’ve brought this up to nearly every doctor (okay, not the OB-GYNs, but all the other primary care doctors I’ve spoken with), and not ONE of them has ever suggested I go see a specialist about this problem. Every single one of them has brushed this off, saying that different people have different reactions to different viruses. That’s always helpful and enlightening, isn’t it? It’s not supposed to be normal. But I guess that goes to show that you really need to advocate for yourself when you think something is wrong. Doctors aren’t incentivized to really help you, sadly. They’re just incentivized to get paid for your visit.

Babies are resilient while adults suffer

After just a day of antibiotics, Kaia is already looking and sounding better. She’s talkative, babbling and saying real words constantly, and walking around the apartment as though she owns the place. She’s interacting with her toys and a couple of stuffed animals and demanding foods once again, so she’s back to her semi-normal self!

But me? Every time I think I am feeling better, I find myself running into the bathroom to cough up endless amounts of phlegm, and in the worst cases, kneeling over the toilet to throw up whatever I had just eaten. Doctor after doctor has told me that sometimes, different viruses just hit people differently, so I shouldn’t think too much of it. But is this really just the cold virus’s fault over the last six years since I first got silent reflux, or did something happen to me when I got that virus that changed something about my body?

I went to chat with the pharmacist at Duane Reade today to ask for his recommendations for my symptoms. He suggested that I get Mucinex with the cough suppressant, and Benadryl of all things. I wasn’t clear on the Benadryl since I thought that was supposed to be an allergy medication, but he told me that it helps with mucus production, too, and would dry it out for me while I slept. The Teladoc doctor I spoke with recommended a decongestant that would not help with mucus, and when I told the pharmacist this, he looked at me like I was nuts and clarified what that medication was for. It’s always fun to talk to incompetent doctors via Teladoc.

The mystery virus and now an ear infection

After what have now been eight days of Kaia being ill, I finally decided to schedule a doctor’s appointment for her to see if there was anything additional that could be done for her. To date, I think this is the longest she’s been sick without much improvement, other than a fever that has faded off. The last few nights were especially rough: our combined constant coughing and phlegm really made for near sleepless nights. Each morning, she’d wake up with endless snot encrusted all over her face, and even all over her eyes. This morning, I had to slowly and gently massage her eyes and eyelashes with a warm, wet face towel to dislodge all the caked on snot so that she could even open her eyes. That was not fun… for her or for me.

So Chris took her to the pediatrician’s office this morning for a sick visit. And after some examination, they came to the conclusion that she’s actually at the tail end of this bad cold virus, which seems to be affecting a lot of kids her age recently. They don’t know exactly what the cold virus is, but they ruled out COVID or RSV. But what we weren’t quite expecting: after examining her ears, they realized that all the mucus she had been experiencing had given her an ear infection, as the inside of her right ear was red. So, they gave her a 10-day course of antibiotics for the ear infection.

It’s actually amazing she’s been able to stay away from ear infections until now. Ear infections are extremely common among babies and toddlers because their immune systems are under developed and less equipped to fight off infections. Ear infections are caused by bacteria and usually begin after a child has had a sore throat, cold, or upper respiratory infection. In Kaia’s case, she has the most common ear infection type, which is acute otitis media (AOM), where parts of the middle ear are infected and swollen, and fluid is trapped behind the ear drum. The ear infection was a bit of a surprise since she hadn’t shown any signs of it (no pulling or touching of the ears), but at the same time, I also wasn’t surprised that this had happened given how long she’d been so miserable.

Hopefully there is some light at the end of this tunnel now, hopefully.

Daycare sickness woes

It is never fun to see your child suffering in any way, especially when they are ill, and there’s little to nothing you can do to take away the pain. As a parent, it’s almost ingrained in you to want to do something to alleviate the pain, but when kids are as young as Kaia is, there’s not much you can really do. You can’t take most medications to alleviate things like cough or congestion. You just have to “ride it out,” which really stinks. And it’s especially frustrating when not only your child is sick, but YOU are sick with the exact same illness. Every time Kaia coughs her very phlegmy cough or her nose oozes with endless boogers streaming down her face, I think: that’s what I have! I have that, too! I’m basically the same, except I can do things like clean up my face that she doesn’t really know how to do yet.

People warn you a lot about daycare sicknesses. It’s not just the issue of your child getting sick and needing to be pulled out of daycare; it’s also the fact that they will get you sick, and then you have to take time off work not just to care for them, but you’ll be miserable and ill yourself the entire time. And there’s really no break when they’re at home, whether it’s day or night. Last night, I probably slept only 1-2 consecutive hours at a time, if I am being generous. I was constantly being woken up by my own coughing and phlegm, or her coughing, phlegm, and crying. Plus, because I was constantly drinking warm water to soothe my throat, I was making endless trips to the bathroom. And, I also had to suck her nose and offer her poor throat some water.

I always tell myself: it’s okay. It’s better that she build up her immune system now when she’s really young than have to get super sick all the time once she starts kindergarten and the “real” school years, when missing class will become more critical. And it’s not like we were ever going to have a nanny that long, anyway. But even when I say this to reassure myself, all along, I still know that either way, it still really, really sucks. I say this all while I am coughing violently, hacking up endless phlegm and on the verge of vomiting.

Daycare bug

Last week, we noticed a lot of kids being out of the classroom. I just assumed it was due to summer vacations, so I didn’t think much of it until one of the teachers told me at pickup that a bug has been going around, and the kids have been getting sick. On ne day I went in last week, the teacher said that a kid had to get picked up not even at the half-day mark because she was so ill. I braced myself: at some point, that bug is going to get Kaia, and well, eventually me, too. I share food and utensils with her all the time, and because I am hyper anti-waste, I even eat all her leftover lunch food (yes, my parents constantly guilting me about not wasting food when I was little has stayed with me until now).

Kaia was feverish on Friday. It went up to 104 on Saturday night. It came down with some medication on Sunday, but since, she’s had congestion, lots of phlegm and cough, an on and off fever going up to 102 F, and in general, is just not quite herself. She still gets excited about music, but when it comes to food, she just doesn’t want to eat much. Though tonight, she did eat some of my (watered down for her) matzo soup that Chris got me. I’ve picked up pretty much all her symptoms, as well, minus the fever.

I slept for about 3 hours straight this afternoon, and when I woke up, I couldn’t even believe I slept that long in the middle of the day. But I suppose that’s just how tired my body was. In these moments, I just think: I don’t know how people with traditional office jobs do paid work AND parenting at the same time, especially when being sick themselves!

My friend’s second shot at breastfeeding

A friend of mine recently had her second baby in May. She gave birth to her first in August 2021. While they weren’t actively trying to get pregnant, they weren’t not trying to get pregnant, so she got pregnant the second time around “accidentally,” and realized quickly that she’d be one of those parents who had “two under two” very soon. While she did not successfully breastfeed her first due to lack of knowledge and education, she decided that with this second child, she’d at least try to pump. She’s about 12 weeks postpartum now, and pumping about four times a day. She produces about half of what baby needs and tops up with formula. While we were on a video chat with another friend yesterday night, she was connecting to her breast pump and putting on a hands-free pumping bra, feeling embarrassed.

“Yvonne, did you know that I didn’t even know these hands-free pumping bras even existed until a week ago when a friend told me about them?” she said, laughing. “She told me, and then I immediately ordered it. I don’t know how I pumped this whole time without it! It’s been life changing!”

“Ahhhhh! You should have asked me! I would have told you way earlier!” I responded back, feeling bad.

“That’s the thing: I didn’t even know what to ask! You don’t know what you don’t know,” she replied, sighing and feeling dejected.

She’s totally right, though. When you’re on a journey as black-box-ish as breastfeeding and pumping, you really have no idea what to ask; you just hope that the people and resources who are supposed to be educating you will actually tell you everything you need. You really do NOT know what you don’t know, so how do you even begin to ask? So it’s sad when the experts you (or your insurance) pay money to just don’t arm you with all that information, then don’t give you the adequate time to ask and learn with them. And that’s what makes breastfeeding so hard in this country. We don’t have all the adequate resources to even know what questions to ask. Even though I weaned earlier this year, I still think about how frustrating this lack of knowledge and awareness is all the time and how my journey with breastfeeding Kaia could have looked so different if I just had all the right information upfront before she was even born. I’m happy that my friend is trying this second time, though, and that she has a second shot at it.

Early Intervention (EI) for children

A lot of people look at the need or mention of “early intervention” in their baby or toddler’s life as a condemnation of their parenting abilities, whether it’s about whether they have done enough for their child, or if it’s something they could have passed down to them genetically that has stunted some part of their development. I’ve generally always been pragmatic about it: if a child needs some additional help, it’s probably better to get them help sooner rather than later, because whatever that developmental delay is, it could cascade and have negative affects on other areas of development if not addressed.

I had a hunch Kaia would be quite verbal this time last year, and I was right: at this point, she can say over 60 different words, which according to developmental milestone charts I’ve read, is at the 2-year old-plus level of speaking. But the area where she hasn’t been that strong is in walking. She easily pulls herself up and gets down. She sits in a lot of different positions. She also is happy to walk while we hold her hands, or when she’s pushing her walker. But she just won’t walk independently, and she will only stand on her own for about 3-4 seconds max. She crawls super fast though, and she’s very, very nimble. Crawling was supposed to precede walking. But still to this day, no walking on her own. I told the doctor this at her appointment today, and she suggested that she recommend Kaia for early intervention to see what we could do to help her walk. Someone would likely reach out to me in the next 2-3 weeks to set up an appointment to come to our home and observe and potentially make recommendations to help.

I don’t really mind it, and I don’t see any harm in having someone evaluate her and watch her closely. I especially don’t mind since it’s fully covered via our health insurance, plus we don’t have to go out of our way to get the help. Who knows – our nanny says that she thinks Kaia is just on the brink of walking and will likely get there before the EI appointment is even scheduled, so we shall wait and see.

Pookster finally sleeps in her crib all night since coming back from Australia

On Saturday night, I slept in the air mattress we set up next to Kaia’s crib, with the front rail removed. While she fussed a couple times through the night, she mostly just needed the pacifier back in her mouth, as well as to get a brief back rub (she mostly prefers to sleep on her stomach at this stage). At around 2am, she fussed and needed to be comforted, so I pulled her off the crib mattress and onto my chest so that she could fall asleep on top of me, and eventually put her back on her back on the crib mattress. She slept soundly all the way until about 7am on Sunday morning. I opened my eyes at about 7:12am, and I found her sitting on her knees on her crib mattress, staring down at me, probably wondering when mommy would finally wake up.

Then last night, at Chris’s suggestion, I snuck out of the room after her first mini fuss, at around 12:30am. I went back to our own bed and slept there, checking on her twice through the night to make sure she was okay. She slept all by herself in her room until around 6am, when Chris woke up and saw her standing at the crib, waiting for us to get her. He went to retrieve her and brought her back to our bed, where she slept for another 45 minutes before waking up. It was like in the old days, before the Australia trip, when she happily slept in her crib but would occasionally want to join our bed in the early morning.

It took a while to get here, but I hope this keeps up. I want her to feel safe and comfortable in her crib, in her own room, without us there. I just hope no future trip disrupts this and causes her separation anxiety to come back again.

Don’t withhold food from the Pookster; she will come for you

Kaia’s palate always seems to surprise pretty much everyone. Our nanny doubted me when I introduced different new, strongly flavored and spiced food to her way in the beginning of our solids journey. Other nannies tell our nanny that she is lying or exaggerating when she talks about what Kaia eats. Parents on both sides have questioned whether our approach has been smart or safe. Envious friends have suggested that not all parents would be comfortable implementing the same feeding approach. But the funny thing is, even though we have certainly been bold and seemingly fearless in introducing as many new flavors to her as possible, especially in the period leading up to her turning 1, Pookster also occasionally astonishes us, as well.

With some of the produce we picked up in Jackson Heights and Woodside yesterday, I made a fresh sour mango salad as part of our dinner this evening. I really didn’t have that many sour green mangoes, so we really just had enough mangoes for Chris and me as part of our meal. Because I pounded two Thai chilies into the garlic for the dressing and tasted it, it seemed a bit too spicy, so I decided not to give Kaia any.

Well, I probably “decided” that too soon because while feeding her dinner, she kept peering into my dinner bowl, wondering what I was eating, and probably also wondering why the hell she didn’t get the same thing. My baby gets massive FOMO when it comes to food. She whined until I gave her some, and then of course, she had to have 4-5 more spoonfuls until I had no more salad for myself left, except the parts with pounded chili residual.

Okay, well I guess I learned something: next time, I will not only buy more sour green mangoes, but I will also just give her the spicy food while I eat it. There’s really no need for me to be a tease with my own child, is there?