Monday, March 31, 2008

When is it time to say Uncle?

#2 has been coughing a very wet, nasty, sounds like she needs to hork up a giant lugie (loogie? how in the heck do you spell that anyway?) cough for about 2 weeks now.

Today she has added on congestion that involves constant sniffling and slurping sounds, the slurping I assume is due in part to the mouth breathing she has to do.

I have put off calling the doctor until today because while her cough sounds yucky, it has not seemed to be too bothersome. It hasn't slowed her down, kept her up at night or anything like that. I just assumed it would run it's course. It has not gotten worse, but still has not shown any improvement either.

The problem is the course is feeling a bit long to me. Now we have new symptoms on top of it.

It is hard to know when to cry Uncle! or Doctor! I guess if I want to be more accurate.

I try hard to wait things out, because 9 times out of 10 when I do take the child in, I hear that it is a virus that has to run it's course. However I keep a tenuous grasp on anxiety when my kids are sick. My mother unfortunately unwittingly feeds that anxiety with her constant comments anytime one of them sniffles, and seeing as they are in her care two days a week after school, that can be a lot of comments. I should probably address that with her.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a mom who needs to leave every appointment with some kind of prescription, but I do get tired of wishing I had left well enough alone, especially with a 50% co-pay for each visit.

I wish that they could give me some kind of chart or flow sheet for these types of situations. You know.... if A B C occurs for X amount of time then bring 'em on in. I try calling the nurse to see if I am over reacting or not, but she is not going to make the decision for me no matter how hard I try to make her do so. In fact I end those calls feeling more undecided than I did to start.

So tomorrow it is off to the doctor to see what if anything is wrong. At the very least I hope that she will answer my questions about whether we have just been unlucky this winter with #2 regarding illness, or is it time to take a closer look at her and see if something is going on. Cause this kid has really gone over her illness quota for the year.

Here's hoping my time and money are not wasted.

But most importantly let's get this kid healthy.

2 comments:

Ali said...

Finally playing catch up on your blog (mom is here which means I have a few minutes of free baby rearing). Frankly, I'm not sure what nurses are for if not to give guidance. So frustrating! Did you go in and is she okay?

Missy said...

Yes we did go in. They believe that since she has had so many upper respiratory illness with a relatively short duration in between that she has likely moved in to infected sinuses now. The cough is totally due to sinus drainage, her lungs were clear. (She listened to them for such a long time I was really getting worried for a second!) So we have an antibiotic and she is taking children's mucinex which is an OTC cough and decongestant that is supposed to help her get rid of the yuck. On top of all of this we went to the dentist today for a check up. She was due for x-rays and she has an adult tooth that is infringing on the space of the baby tooth next to it as it makes it's decent. So in June she gets a tooth pulled and a spacer put in so that we can avoid future orthodontic work. It has been a super day.