Bad Parent: The Sickest Baby on the Block
After months of "wait and see," I finally embraced modern medicine.
by Kim Brooks
March 12, 2009
Roscoe, it turned out, was developing what's known as Reactive Airway Disease, a general term used to describe a history of wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath of unknown cause. It's common in young children and often resolves itself as the lungs mature. The folks in the ER seemed thoroughly unimpressed by it.
"He's definitely wheezing," they would tell us, "but he looks like a linebacker."
"His pediatrician sent us here," we'd tell them.
"Yeah," they'd shrug, "it's a frustrating condition for parents."
They weren't kidding. For the next seven months, Roscoe caught cold after cold, each one bringing an entourage of secondary symptoms: wheezing, coughing, a raging double ear-infection that called for antibiotics, which gave him horrific diarrhea. At times, I felt like I was not taking care of a baby but rather a living, breathing ball of mucus. There were always more medications to administer than we could fathom, and our little linebacker did not take them easily.
I didn't want him subjected to unnecessary tests.
During one particularly bad cold where his wheezing required nebulizing treatments every four hours around the clock, my husband and I resorted to singing and twirling around in circles and doing bizarre dance numbers with pots and pans on our heads, anything to distract him from the plastic mask we had to hold over his face, which he reacted to with the same fury you'd expect to get from the wheel or the rack. Along with questions like, "Does Roscoe need his dinner?" or "Does the baby need a diaper?" we began asking, "Has the baby had his torture today?" or "Whose turn is it to do the torture?"
Up until this point, I'd been hesitant to drag Roscoe to a slew of specialists. His doctor was steering us toward a pediatric ENT, a pulmonary expert, and an allergist. At first, I refused. In addition to the "minor torture" of his medications, I didn't want him subjected to unnecessary tests, didn't want him to be probed and poked unless absolutely necessary. He already went to his primary doctor so often; the last thing I wanted was to add in others. I wanted to let nature take its course. "He's basically healthy," I told myself. "Thank God, he's basically healthy."
©2009 Kim Brooks and Babble
About the Author
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Kim Brooks has written for Glimmer Train, One Story, Epoch
and the Missouri Review. She also writes non-fiction for
The Crier. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son. |
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