The only thing we have to fear is…
I really lost it last night.
Monday afternoon Noah woke up from his nap with a barky cough, which went away after a hot bath/steam experience. Carl bought a humidifier, ’cause we figured that can’t hurt, and we plugged it in to put on at night in our room.
Yesterday he was mostly okay except for every now and then when he’d cough once or twice with that braying inhale at the end of it that means an airway clearing, and I was getting a little concerned although the “every now and then” was like, every two hours.
Then as we headed towards the evening he started getting raspy and a little wheezy (on the exhaling breath, I noticed) and looking like he was getting a cold (his second!). He was pretty tired out, and nursed himself down (something he never does any more) and I laid him down and listened to whether he was breathing too fast and checked his fingers for blueness and generally did a check and then headed out to the kitchen and cranked the monitor up.
I was just settling down to hopefully get my last two articles finished and clean up the first three for this week (I hate that the Xmas season means a lot of ‘list’ articles, but they are faster to write in some ways. Except if you’re me and obsess with which ten things to choose, or when to stop the list, or whatever. But no, still faster in some ways.)
When over the monitor came a high pitched… wheeze? I don’t know. It sounded like stridor, which is the high pitched sound on the inhale. And had I just stopped to listen some more I bet it wouldn’t have repeated itself, or something.
But I leapt over my chair and rushed into the bedroom, accidentally banging the door open and waking Noah up in the process. I was on high, high adrenaline and took Noah for a nurse in the rocking chair but I was tense and then a little shaky. He picked up on that and was a bit wriggly, but probably would have gone down okay if he hadn’t had a coughing fit just as I was transferring him into the crib. Or if Carl hadn’t come in the front door right then.
I’d had time to realize, at least, that I was overreacting, so I passed Noah to Carl but that was a mistake, for Noah’s sake. For mine it was good to be able to do a few jumping jacks and try to knock my body out of its freakout. I talked to Idaho for a few minutes (too short!) and tried to work, but it was clear that it was becoming a two-parent, or at least a boobed-parent, job.
Noah started going through all his signs and fighting to be let down, which normally means “up for four hours” but he was also getting really wheezy and congested and finally we threw him in the car and he went to sleep sitting up and we got over that hurdle. And got a (decaff) coffee at a drive-through.
When we got back (now 9:30, after all this; he went down at 7) I was still really freaked out. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots intellectually - I, and maybe other people in the system, were totally triggered around the whole breathing a little like Emily thing. But it was awfully hard to step my emotions and body back down from the idea that Noah might not breathe! right! and die! like Emily! And he made that NOISE! And maybe we should go sit in emerg!
And in fact I ended up mostly Googling stupid shit and checking on Noah and at 11 pm I went to bed without my work done and setting today up to be really difficult. Noah got up at 11:10, went back down around 11:30, and then woke up at 3:30, down about 15 minutes later, up at 4:15, and never really went back down although I handed him over to Carl at 5:30 so I could get some work done before Carl had to shower & leave at 7.
Years of therapy have given me the capacity to recognize when I’m having a PTSD fight-or-flight reaction, and some skills to walk down from it, but none of that has given me the ability to trust that if I shut my eyes and sleep when my baby’s having minor respiratory issues, that he will still be there when I wake up. My body even was all involved and I was really feeling that bizarre birthing bed I slept on the night Emily was born and the night after when she’d been transferred, and the feel of her body cooling in my arms.
So yeah, didn’t get much sleep at all.
I did take Noah in to the doctor today. He has a cold (by then he had a runny nose and his coughs weren’t making the braying sound any more). It’ll probably be a few rough nights babies colds blah blah blah. I also got my work done through adrenaline, being willing to let something not very polished or done through, and judicious administration of Fancy New Toy to Noah. (Also an email to my editor that said “here are the articles, I’ll probably be rewriting this one if I may before the final pass-through to the site. Something for tomorrow morning.)
Just getting through all that took a lot. Tonight I find myself physically tired but still on alert, and after I write this I’ll probably go try a bath or some yoga, assuming Noah doesn’t wake up. (He’s having a rough road, poor baby, due to copious snot. My MD does not recommend baby cold meds.)
But I also find myself tired-frustrated-angry that once again the mildly difficult (baby, colds, coughs, wheezing) is turned into what emotionally feels like the astronomically difficult (life and death, fear, adrenaline) because of PTSD. And this PTSD was medical system created. It’s frustrating as all get out.
I have to give the backup doctor at my doctor’s practice credit though. He’s basically a walking dead white guy (I know he’s over 60; he may be in his seventies, and not very high tech) and sometimes apt to tut-tut a bit. But he checked Noah out really thoroughly and then he asked me (imagine!) what was worrying me the most. So I said the breathing and talked a tiny bit about why, and so he really walked me through which noises are bad and that if it responds to steam for 30 minutes - not less! - it’s probably not vastly serious and how often to check on the baby and all those things. Which was just the kindness I needed to get on with the day actually.
Noah is largely unfazed, except for the sleep/snot factor. In fact today he figured out that he can pull a chair over to the table (or use the handy bench, until I moved it), climb up on the seat, and then climb up onto the kitchen table and play with my computer! This all took him the time it took me to turn to the coffee pot and pour a cup of (yes, decaff) coffee.
Life!
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5 Responses to “The only thing we have to fear is…”
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vicks vapor rub great with congested babies.
scary stuff.
For what it’s worth, I’ve had full-scale freakouts under similar circumstances and without the weight of history to excuse it. People tell you ‘it’s so hard to be a mom when your baby’s sick’ and ‘you feel their pain’ and ‘you wish you could just take the sick into yourself to spare them’ but like so many of those aphorisms the words are pathetically inadequate.
She slips climbing down off the couch and gets a big pink bump on her forehead and not only am I desperately checking her eyes for signs of concussion but I would gladly slam my own forehead against the fireplace if it would just lower that hot little lump on her head.
No wise advice or recommendations, just whatever comfort can be found in ‘right there with ya’.
Add my voice to the “right there with yas.” You have to trust your instincts, whether they’re motivated by PTSD or Google or good old-fashioned paranoia. You know your son, you know when something isn’t right, and if peace of mind can be achieved by a visit to a tut-tuting doctor, then GO and DON’T beat yourself up about it.
Also, WORD to the Vicks Baby Rub. Jamie gets absolutely FURIOUS with me when I put it on his chest (I guess it isn’t manly enough for him ;-), but he sleeps 100% better when he’s congested.
Wow I don’t even know if we have that here but I’m going right out to look :) Thank you all!
Yeah, Vicks is wonderful.
I’m sorry about the PTSD. Obviously it makes perfect sense. And it does suck.
I’m glad Noah is recovering and you got good medical support this time.