Maybe tomorrow or soon, when the dust settles, I will write something worthy of him and post it for one of the three daily entries I am currently missing from this week.
One of my friends recently posted that his life has recently gotten so full with, well... life.
I really liked that. I can relate.
We've had a long, steady stream of stuff happening in the last few weeks that have made it so hard for me to get quiet time and space in which to write.
Today when I picked my four year old up from morning summer camp, I happened to check out his hand. The broken one that has been healing, steadily, day by day.
Exactly one month to the day has passed since his accident and even though I hoped we were 'out of the woods', I've still been pretty vigilant about casually checking out his fingers. It's a paranoid mom thing, what can I say.
All in all, my level of anxiety about his injury and subsequent allergic reaction has declined steadily since the day they removed his cast and those adorable little fingers were still a nice normal fleshy color.
This afternoon when I checked him though, my heart fluttered just a little and I inhaled. Quietly.
"You know what, hon?" I smiled. "Everything's just fine but I think you may have picked up a little infection. Why don't we just have your pediatrician take a little look, since we're so close to her office?"
"Okay, Mommy."
The kid is such a trooper, he didn't fight at all. Despite all of the many doctors he has been forced to deal with in the last month, he was extremely relaxed about the entire change of afternoon plan. What a sweetheart.
Long story short, unfortunately my instinct was right and it IS an infection.
Which means, more antibiotics for 10 days.
* * * * * * *
Not a problem. Except of course, for the erythema multiforme reaction he had less than three weeks ago to the last antibiotic he had to take for 10 days.
The doctor we saw (not our pediatrician, one of the partners - a woman in her 60s) didn't really make me feel better about this. She said, "Oh! Wow. Erythema multiforme is really serious. I've only seen 2 or 3 of those in my entire career and they really are scary."
This isn't exactly what any mother hopes to hear from a medical professional, especially when already worried about her small kid.
* * * * * * *
Still, she made it pretty clear that despite the recent allergy, we needed to take the chance on these new antibiotics.
"What are our alternatives?" I asked.
"Well, you can wait and see -" she began. "But, if the infection gets into the bone, then we're talking about hospitalization and IV antibiotics. So, I'd take the chance on this medicine."
That made sense to me.
Two hours later my son and I sat side by side at home in our kitchen with a bottle of augmentin in front of us. We high-fived in an act of love and solidarity.
"Are you ready?"
"I'm ready. I'm going to be fine, Mommy."
"Of course you are. This is no big deal. But, please do tell me if you start feeling weird like you did with the last medicine."
"Okay Mommy. I love you."
"Honey, I love you too and you've been so strong and brave. This whole experience will be over very soon. You'll be back to normal in no time."
We hugged and then I gave him his augmentin.
Thankfully, no immediate reaction. I'm no longer worried about a sudden reaction, now I just need to watch out for what happened last time. A delayed hypersensitivity.
"Some people have the immediate reaction," said our pharmacist, "but in others it takes days to develop. Just watch him closely."
* * * * * * *
I will.
* * * * * * *
As I wrote at the beginning of this post, today is my husband's birthday. I'm really looking forward to seeing him tonight and feel so grateful that we had an entire weekend together out of town last week.
Already it seems like a million years or so have passed since our romantic getaway.
I feel every bit as anxious and stressed as I was before we left, and I almost don't recognize myself in the memory of the happy carefree woman I got the chance to be for two whole days.
I love my husband so much, and for his birthday I wish him the best possible year!
But mostly, what I'm wishing for right now are ten healthy, infection free fingers.
I know a four year old who really deserves them.
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