RSV

We all have it (yes, even me...at least I assume that's what I have since I'm sick and the kids all have RSV).

Last Sunday Ezra started to get sick. By Tuesday night he was completely unable to sleep, had an awful wet cough, and was pretty miserable. I took him to the pediatrician on Wednesday, and he had a breathing treatment for his wheezing and got a prescription for an inhaler and drops to help his fluid-filled ears feel better, as well as an antibiotic in case he spiked a fever or his ears started to hurt more over the long weekend. A 10-minute-long breathing treatment on a sick and stubborn 2-year-old is not exactly an easy thing to accomplish. They left me in the room by myself with the kids and the machine, and after making up games that worked for about 15 seconds each (you're an elephant! you're an anteater!--he had the long tube coming off of the mask on his face) I finally bribed him with chocolate ice cream (which backfired because now he wants chocolate ice cream every time he's "a good boy"--his words, not mine). Of course we have to hold him down for the inhaler, too.

Wednesday night the babies didn't sleep, and by Thursday they were both feeling pretty sick. As usual, Toby is so much sicker than Ari. None of the kids went to the family Thanksgiving party. My mother and Baruch stayed with them at first while I went, and then I came back and my mother went. But yesterday, Friday, the babies were feeling so sick. Toby was just miserable. By yesterday evening Toby was breathing pretty rapidly, and not only was he wheezing quite a lot, I could feel his chest rattling just holding him. Of course yesterday was a holiday, but thankfully there is a pediatric urgent care clinic at a local hospital, and I got there just before they closed. And oh what a traumatic evening (for Toby and for me).

I left the room when the doctor did the RSV swab down Toby's nose. He screamed. When I came in his nose was very slightly bloody. God that had to have been uncomfortable. Then I had to hold Toby during the breathing treatment, with a mask over his face, while he screamed. And then the weirdest of all, we tried to calm him by singing Baby Beluga while they strapped him, naked except for a diaper, into a strange contraption with a tiny bicycle seat he straddled and a plastic tube that went around his body with his arms sticking straight up. This was for the chest x-ray. It looked uncomfortable and it was certainly freaking him out. He cried so hard he vomited. Not spit up, vomited. My poor baby.

Of course the RSV swab came back positive and we knew what we are dealing with. Ezra still isn't better (it's been almost a week! this is a kid who rarely gets sick at all). Ari is still not as sick, but I'm keeping an eye on him. And poor Toby. He absolutely hates the taste of the prednisone liquid he has to take. He just fell fast asleep while sitting on my lap facing forwards towards the computer...if you know my kids, you know how sick that is. Thankfully he is still nursing, although not as much (neither is Ari, for that matter).

And, as I said, I'm sick. Was just getting sick last night, and today here I am. Obviously we're not going anywhere today. No synagogue or really much of anything. Ezra is so bored from being house-bound (although--oops--I did take him to gym class Tuesday because he seemed to be feeling okay, and he had a great time...hope all those kids don't get RSV now).

Oh yeah and I haven't slept in a week.