One of the negatives to daycare is that your children often get sick…a lot.  Most of the sickness occurs between infant age and roughly two years of age.  I call this the sick zone.  The payback on having your kids sick early is that by the time they hit school age, they have been in contact with most sickness out there and have developed a pretty strong immune system, as opposed to a child that has not been exposed to other children as much.  We now have a 5 month old baby boy who is smack dab in the middle of life in the sick zone. 

So about two weeks ago we start noticing some signs in our son’s daycare room about some of his “classmates” contracting RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus).  For those of you that are not familiar with RSV, I will give you a link so that you may read up.  In a nut shell, it is a respiratory virus that is the leading cause of pneumonia in children under the age of 1 year. RSV can be pretty bad stuff, especially for an infant.  So we notice the sign at daycare that a child has come down with RSV, then another child, then another…At this point we are starting to prepare for the worse , which would be B would come down with RSV too.  We are on high alert at home.   If that child made one strange noise my wife was hovering like the black CIA helicopters.  You know the one’s on TV that just appear out of nowhere at just the right moment.  That is my wife.  She could be in a deep sleep and that baby monitor will click the wrong way.  You have never seen someone move so fast!  It’s like tossing a happy meal and a 40 into a pack of wild homeless.

Despite our efforts, last Tuesday we notice the cough starting to set in and the sinuses starting to get stuffy.  We go ahead and take him to the doctor on Wednesday morning hoping to catch whatever he has in its early stages.  Of course, he gets diagnosed with RSV (this makes a total of 8 out of 16 babies at his daycare).  On top of the RSV our little guy appeared to have a slight ear infection.  So we get home Wednesday with his new medicine regiment, which is antibiotic twice a day for the ear infection and breathing treatments on the nebulizer every 4 hours.  The Nebulizer has been a smart buy.  We bought it when our daughter had gotten sick as a baby and have gotten much use out of it since then, including myself for a spell. If you have the choice in renting or buying, buy.

I stay home from work with B last Thursday and Friday and we stay holed up all weekend.  My wife takes Monday off this week and B had oringinally been cleared  to go back on Tuesday.  Well, he didn’t seem like he was improving as they said that he should. Thus we took him back to the doctor Tuesday morning.  The good news from that visit was that the RSV was starting to subside and his breathing sounded good.  Don’t get me wrong, the child still has a horrible cough.  I mean the little guy will get to coughing uncontrollably until he vomits, which starts the coughing all over again…it’s bad.  I can’t help but think of the Exorcist when he projectiles…I know I am a bad parent…The bad news was that his slight ear infection has progressed into a pretty bad infection in both ears.  We were sent home with a stronger antibiotic and instructed to continue on with breathing treatments.  You would think we were in the clear, right?

Turns out that B is allergic to penicillin.  He had a “mild” reaction to the antibiotic that left is little infant body covered from head to toe with hives!  He looked like I had taken him out back, tied him to the fence and took target practice with a BB gun.  Back to the doctor.  Prescribed new antibiotic and Benadryl every 4 hours. 

3:00 AM Wednesday morning:  The hives have not only not gone away like they said that they would, they are worse!  They look like they have just joined and his whole little body is just one swollen hive!  Back to the doctor.  Prescribed a steroid to combat the allergic reaction and another day at home.  Yes, one of us has been at home with him for an entire week!  In that week the poor child has ingested mild antibiotic, stronger antibiotic, non-allergy causing antibiotic, breathing treatments, a jug of Benadryl, and a jug of Tylenol, topped of with steroids!  I am just waiting for the “roids”  to kick in, and B stand up in his crib and rip his onesie open like the Hulk! 

We will see how the little guy does today on his first day back at daycare.  The one thing that I have gotten from this is  B’s little way of saying, “thanks for taking care of me, Dad”.  I am now sick…

RSV Link http://www.cdc.gov/rsv/