Little Boy Is Sick

Poor little John is darned sick. I'd been suspicious when I heard a few random wet coughs on Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, his sickness was fully obvious. This is the first time John has had a wet cough or a fever, and it's been no fun for any of us. His temperatures have gotten up to 102, so I've been medicating the fever, even though at a lower level I'd prefer to let the fever do its job fighting the virus. John can hardly breathe for all the mucous and he's clearly in a lot of pain (I'm presuming a sore throat and possible headache and joint aches). He doesn't know how to cough out the mucous so ends up throwing it up. The baby is absolutely glued to me and won't so much as let somebody else touch him without bursting into wailing tears. I've slept a total of about four hours in the last two nights because John isn't often sleeping longer than five minutes before he has to shift position and cry until he can fall back asleep. Often, the only way he can sleep is if I'm sitting up, holding and jiggling him in some contorted position.

Essentially, this has been two days of almost continual crying on John's part. Thank God that Aunt Erica is visiting while Chris is on his business trip because she is providing me a tremendous amount of help, making me food and generally being my hands for me: I haven't had to hold John this much since he was a newborn!

Here are two photos taken while John was sitting on my lap, generally being miserable with his pale skin and red-rimmed eyes:

I am grateful that John is still nursing. As is normal with sick toddlers, he has zero interest in food and, in fact, will barely drink any water. Yet one thing I haven't had to worry about in these days is whether he's getting dehydrated. He's nursing around the clock for comfort so I can feel confident that he's getting plenty of water and calories. Yay!

This blog post was made possible by the fabulous Ergo in which John is asleep on my back.

(As an aside, I feel bad even reporting that John is sick as I found out yesterday that an acquaintance just learned that her two-year-old has leukemia. So, we pray for her family and count our blessings.)