Snap jack back and a possible biopsy!

I have to keep telling myself life will get better. Or I might just forget that.
I'm right now lying on my back and typing out this post with hubby's laptop at an odd angle to my stomach and my thigh. I've a bad lower back spasm. Something i've had before and had been warned might happen again if i'm not careful. Such warnings swim in the back of your mind for very few days after the attack.Then you're back to bending over the wrong way because that's what comes very naturally. So does the pain.

My Sonny Boy's nanny isn't back at work yet. She's not taking my calls on her cellphone, neither is she returning them. That's a bad bad sign. Aunt's surgery next week and then my parents have taken it upon themselves to offer her post-operative care at their home. It's going  be be a month of hell for them. Feeling so bad for them and helpless. If nanny doesn't return, my resignation chances look clearer.

My parents have taken ill, along with Sonny. If there's a name to my degree of frustration, I don't know of it.
Sonny is so bad with a cough, congestion, runny nose and its happening all over again, over and over again. He's hardly been to playschool this whole month. Bangalore's weather is playing truant. I think it's showing -- teh effects of climate change.

Immunity -- that really gets me worried and talking all the time. It's something I have very little of and so does Sonny, I suppose.
I'm now being advised to take and give him septulin supplements, iron tonics etc etc.
If there is something that worries a mother, it has to be her child's illness -- whatever it is, and whatever degree it is.
I'm just blabbering. I've been at home, hardly have anyone to talk to, am feeling like shit.

Moreover, I had a harrowing week of breast swelling and inflammation -- something the doctors have, after an ultrasound scan, diagnosed as an infection -- but if it doesn't come down by Tuesday I might need a biopsy. I'm dreading it. I'm a very filmi person. As soon as doc said that, my mind did a flash forward. What if it's cancer? What if I die? What happens to Sonny? What are the things I want to do before I die?Suddenly my priorities seemed different. Top among them, I realised was to spend time with Sonny and other family members. Actually been so depressed and worried have been refusing to go to work. And snapping my back came as a great excuse -- though it only means I have more time on my back for gory imagination and more pain (and medication) than I can already handle. At least the back took the attention away from the boobs, was hubby's take on it all. Oh yeah, maybe that was the plan.

Right now doing a supine posting, with Sonny Boy's blocked rhythmic breathing for bedside company.

 

Immunity in children -- that illusion...that mirage

How many people have told you that it's inevitable? That's the way they do it...that's how they're made etc etc every time your toddler falls ill.

I'm sick of it. I've been told by most people, fellow parents, knowledgeable elders, and my paediatrician that he's going to be falling ill constantly till the age of five!! FIVE??!! I've got a loooong way to go. And meanwhile one must keep mopping up the result of the sniffles.

I'm tired of Mr. Runny Nose, who also has a chest congestion most of the time. Will vomit out phlegm and food very regularly during such episodes. Of course, I feel really sad for him and in fact start crying sometimes when I think how difficult it must be for him to bring up the phlegm and get it out of his system. He looks horrified after he vomits each time and it takes a lot of calming and soothing to actually get him to stop shaking from the shock of the process.

When all of the scientific the world put can concoct a thousand different vaccines, why can't they give children a shot at birth to just boom up their immunity? Wouldn't it be logical that one shot that gives a child's body some super-duper immunity is way better than giving a shot each for one strain of Hepatitis, or pneumococcal fever etc. But then, why would pharma companies develop such a winner, right? It would just kill the vaccine industry.

And i HATE it when the paediatrician tells me that till he develops good immunity, his tummy's going to pack up every time he goes nibbling on his toys and random things he picks off the floor. How in the world does one prevent that? And then when I try to be all clean and wash his toys etc, people laugh in my face and say "You must let him play in the dirt. It builds immunity" Hello?!!! I know, but then when he fall sick after that, who's going to sit there and nurse him back to health?

Yes, don't over-protect them. Let them be, is one line of argument that I'm willing to take considering in the long run it may help the child actually develop a stronger immunity. But if it's anyway going to take five years to get there, what do you do in between?

And, if like another line of argument goes, you end up pumping them with antibiotics each time they fall sick, they become immune to that strain of antibiotics, isn't it, say by when they are 15 or 20?

If you opt for an alternate system of medicine, like homeopathy, the whole world will swoop down upon you and tell you, hand son the hip and fingers pointing accusingly at you, that you're feeding them with things that are not "scientifically sound", "placebos" etc.

So what does one do? "Brace the child, fortify him with fruits, vegetables that will build up his immunity" is easier said than done. And that's the other half of the battle, right?
It's so damn frustrating to see your child sick. It negates your very existence.