Someone Forgot to Tell Bubby He's Sick.

This post has been sitting in my draft folder for an entire week! It's a bit old news but since I bothered to type it I may as well publish it.

Apart from conjunctivitis at 2 weeks, Bubby has not been sick in his entire life. Never even had so much as a sniffle. On Sunday (like Sunday a week ago, not Sunday yesterday) morning I first noticed what I thought were mosquito bites on his hand then after lunch I noticed some red dots on his foot when I took off his sock. I thought they were just marks from his socks. By 5 PM he felt very warm and sure enough he had a fever. I tried to give him Panadol but he vomited it along with his lunch. I think it was more a reaction to the awful taste of the Panadol. Hubby tasted it and he nearly threw up himself, poor big baby. According to the NSW Health Fever Fact Sheet. You should take your child to the doctor if they have have a fever, rash and vomiting among other symptoms. Fever + rash = panicky parents and for good reason. By then it was 6 PM and there's only one place where you can find a doctor on a Sunday night so it would be a trip to the Children's Hospital. Apart from the rash and the fever you wouldn't guess that he was sick especially compared to the other miserable looking children in emergency. I really hate being surrounded by sick people, even if they are cute little children. I don't like the thought of germs hovering in the air. I really don't know why I thought I'd ever work in the medical field. The thought of infectious diseases gives me panic attacks. I'm not exaggerating. I don't know how I got through Medical Microbiology at uni (and did very well at that) when I would be studying one minute and the next I'd be curled up into a tight ball in the corner of my room hyperventilating because I was reading about Mycobacterium tuberculosis and I had convinced myself I had TB. Oh and while having a panic attack I thought I was having a heart attack. Ah the joys of being taken by your parents to emergency because of a panic attack. Lovely times, third year uni. I'm mostly over the hypochondria now but I still hold my breath and cover my nose and mouth every time someone coughs near me. But at least I no longer think I'm going to die of some exotic disease.

Anyway, back to germy little kids. Every time a kid would cough my insides would freeze and I tried to cover Bubby with my body, yeah because that's how you stop germs. Then we had to take a urine sample. Do you know how to make a 9 month old go? You wait and wait and wait just don't blink and miss it because you'll be waiting another hour. We got there in the end and I don't think Bubby wants to see another bottle of water for a while. In the usual Bubby fashion he was being very loud especially once we were finally seen by a doctor. Every time she asked us a question Bubby would answer. He was very vocal about it. I think he was complaining about having to wait in triage for so long and the indignity of having to sit in front of everyone without his pants on. He would even slam the desk to get his point across. Anyway, it turns out he had hand foot and mouth disease. Such an awful name for something that isn't actually serious. I don't even know where or how he caught it as he doesn't go to daycare. I thought maybe mothers' group but nobody has been sick and none of the other babies go to daycare either. Maybe because I let him touch the elevator buttons, hubby reckons it's because we went to Chinatown which is a lot more crowded than what Bubby's used to, who knows. I don't think it's something you catch from being sneezed or coughed on. Maybe I touched something that a germy infected kid has touched. Which is just fantastic as I already try to not touch lift buttons, door handles, buttons at the stop light etc. I can't wait for winter so I can wear my leather gloves and not look like a lunatic. So we're keeping away from people for a while to make sure we don't pass it on. It's really sad because we're missing out on mothers' group and we're only here for another couple of weeks before we have to move but that's another post coming up.

Despite the nasty looking rash and some blisters:

he's been pretty much unbothered by being sick. Occasionally he'd cry out for no apparent reason I'm guessing because he popped a blister and it's painful. But all in all he's been up to his usual antics such as:

Playing under the dining table so he can chew on the remaining plastic cover on the chair. I really must get rid of it.

Watching the washing machine in action.

'Helping' unload the washing machine, except that it's dirty clothes he's pulling out. He also tried to climb in there. He 'helps' me unload the dishwasher too.

Climbing the stairs. He's quite good at it now and can do it all by himself. The problem is he also tries to crawl down the stairs head first. How do you teach a baby to crawl backwards?

Stay tuned for House Hunting Part 5...