quick clicks

dads today articles

dads today q&a

message boards

research baby names

prepare a birth plan

content channels

ip channel rss feeds

read birth stories

read parenting stories

recommended books

e-newsletters

safety recalls

ip diaries

ip store

mom of the month

dad of the month

editor's letter

letters to the editor

Joe's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 4/6/01 -------------------- 2/26/01 2/8/01 1/30/01 1/16/01 1/9/01 1/3/01 12/23/00 12/16/00 12/14/00 -------------------- Joe's Introduction

Introduction

Autumn is sick. Not the fun, demented kind of sick, but rather the vile-yellow-liquid-coming-out-of-every-opening-in-her-body kind of sick. This is not a good thing, trust me. We left the Midwest on Tuesday of last week. Autumn awoke that morning with a stuffy nose -- nothing too serious, I told myself. I was wrong.

She did OK for the duration of our trip back home -- a total of six hours traveling time, split between three different flights. A little fussy, a little whiny, but all in all, not too bad. As soon as we landed in Providence, we stood up to leave the plane, when all of a sudden, I heard the telltale "Bluuuuuuurrrp" come from her mouth. In the last eight months, I've been trained to recognize certain sounds that emanate from Autumn and what they mean. I knew right away what this one meant. It meant that there was now a HUGE mess of yellowish-white formula all over her, and my wife who was carrying her. Autumn started crying, Jess was grossed out, the man sitting in front of us looked like he was about to lose his lunch, and I almost started laughing. I know its not fair to make light of such a nasty situation, but at that point in the day, it was either laugh or cry, and I wasn't about to start weeping.

We got off the plane, got cleaned up, and eventually got home. Autumn was still stuffy, and throwing up every so often. Jess slowly started to get concerned. I chalked it up to Autumn just merely feeling lousy from traveling, and nothing to fret over. Again, I was proven wrong.

The next day, Jess phones me at work and tells me that Autumn has not gotten any better, has been screaming all morning, has already gone through several particularly nasty diapers, and is running a slight fever. She tells me she is going to contact the pediatrician and let her know the symptoms and see what she thinks. She calls me back, as now the doctor wants to see Autumn and give her a once-over. The doctor told Jess that there was some sort of sinus infection virus floating around, that they had already seen 14 infants within the last few days, and that we should bring Autumn in for a nose culture. At this point I start to worry.

To make a long story short, Autumn indeed has a cold, but coupled with a double ear-infection. Lovely. They gave us a prescription to give her every six hours, instructed us to feed her nothing but Pedialyte, run a vaporizer at night, grit our teeth and bear it.

Well, the good news is that she's doing a lot better today. The nasty diapers have tapered off, the extreme vomiting has left, and she is in better spirits. She still has a stuffy nose and I lovingly refer to her as "My little Darth Vader." I know she’s sick, but I need to find humor in just about any situation or I'll go mad. All that worry for naught. Well, almost for naught, this recent chain of events has taught me a valuable lesson.

For one, I can never underestimate the health of my child ever again.

Second, one can never have enough diapers or tissues on hand.

Third, there’s a certain cuteness in a child’s runny nose that I think only a parent can appreciate.

And lastly, medicine tastes bad, no matter how old you are.

One bout of illness down, 300+ more to go...

Until next time,

Joe