Early Wednesday morning Archer woke up with a smoldering fever. Two days later it was still going strong so for the second time in a week, we took Archer to his pediatrician to figure out what was ailing our poor son. This last month has been a coldisaster for all of us. First mad cow disease, then Avian Bird Flu, etc, etc. But this week was the worst of it. When I woke up to tend to Archer's fever, I found that I was also sick. Again? Damn! Archer wasn't eating or moving. He just wanted to cuddle in my lap and watch Little Einsteins for 67 hours straight. Brutal, man. Brutal. No offense to Disney (or...) but Little Einsteins is the most annoying show I've ever seen (minus the intro song which is EXTREMELY catchy)... But Archer loves it. And sick children get what they want. (That's kind of one of the unspoken rules of parenting I am finding.)
Friday I put the call into the pediatrician, feeling like one of those crazy parents who takes their kids to the doctor every five minutes.
"Heh, hello. It's me again. Archer's mom. So... Archer's really sick... again. And I swear he's really sick and I'm not just..."
"Hold please."
Archer represents hair metal and snot!
We were asked to come in right away and Archer's pediatrician went straight for the ears.
"Aha! Just as I suspected! His ears? Well they're infected." (That rhymed!)
"No!"
"Yes."
Our doctor turned her attention to the giant poster of "The Inner Ear" on an elephant-wallpapered wall.
"Here you have a normal eardrum. Nice. Healthy. Pink... And here you have Archer's eardrum: white, swollen, pussing all over the place."
I inspected the pus-filled eardrum with the pediatrician for a good minute, as she explained what happens when a child gets sick and then gets better and then gets sick again and how it often times leads to an ear infection. She said a lot of other stuff too but I didn't really understand what she was talking about. I just knew we were in trouble. (Sad face.)
Our pediatrician went ahead and wrote Archer a prescription for Amoxicillin and directed us to give him 7.5 ML three times a day for ten days, which didn't seem like that big of a deal at the time until...
The gallon of Amoxicillin, better known as "the pink stuff" arrived at the pharmacy counter with an equally giant syringe. The syringe we were told was for "injecting medicine into our child's mouth."
Lovely.
To spare you the suspense and gory details. 7.5 ML three times a day is A LOT of pink stuff. I always figured there was nothing worse than a sick child. Ha! Now I know better. Having to hold down a sick, feverish, sad little baby while force feeding him pink medicine THREE TIMES A DAY is about as bad as it gets. (And I thought that measly Tylenol dropper thing was bad. PIECE OF CAKE compared to the pink stuff in the giant syringe. Piece. Of. Cake!!)
Two and a half days down. Seven and a half days to go.
The good news is that Archer's fever has dropped significantly today and he's starting to eat again which means less Little Einsteins, more chasing the dogs around the house, screaming bloody-muder-crazytown. Ah, the life of a healthy two-year-old. Of course, after all the force-feedings, Archer's totally scared of me. I am the Pink-Stuff Villain.
Of course that's the price any parent is willing to pay for the well-being of their child. I just hope one day Archer will Iove me again. I know I still haven't forgiven my mother for shooting my mouth up with pink drugs as a child.
Ah, the circle of life... and it moves us all.
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